This is an essay about old eyes that seek their place in the present. Though it is set in America, it breathes relevantly into the Indian metropolis, where both buildings and ideas are in-progress, where the rubble holds a history, even as it morphs onwards.
We arrived by bicycle, hoisted our rides up a staircase sloughing brick. Outside it was sunny and still, but the building had its own cool breeze – like it was breathing up the smell of wet dirt, sighing a sigh of spray paint and old puddle. This was a place for machines, once; empty now, the inhuman scale of the walls and ceilings shrunk us to almost nothing. We picked a path through near-vegetative waste – plastic bags, useless bits of wood, the requisite tires – and the cautious tickticktick of our freewheels sent up new sound into old silence.
Editor's Note.
The mysterious inner life, like a mischievous child peering into the living room after his bedtime, shows itself at the oddest, most inconvenient hours. You are at your own party, surrounded by food and alcohol and laughter and then poof! There it is, invisible and omnipresent. Your inner life, sweeping in for the kill, overwhelms all your senses and sound reasoning.
Read MoreAlso in this issue
Illusion: Seeing Beyond Seeing
Meaning: In Search of Significance.
Melody: A Different Tune
Rhythm: Ordering Time