Fringe Coexistence: Our Marvellous Ember

Fringe Coexistence: Our Marvellous Ember

The scent of crisp hot dosas and chutney greets the smell of junk piled up on the road which in turn greets the scent of fresh Jalebis being tossed on a pan. Clay modellers perch there tents on one half of the pavement and Pani-Puri vendors on the other half. Silk Traders beside Book Houses opposite rusty Stationary Shops that sit diagonal to computer accessory dealers beside glossy Gold Jeweller Emporiums. Elements of the present splattered onto a palette from the past. Wide ranges of goods packaged in rock bottom prices housed in senile concrete coated in fresh enamel. 

A family of four collaborating to assemble different varieties of chaat
hand out their preparations on newspaper sheets in exchange for a few coins. On the other side of the road sits a cobbler calling out to passerby’s only to be greeted by a woman in a sari, who I assume is his wife screaming at him for not coming back home for the past week. She reaches out into his shirt pocket and pulls out a few hundred-currency notes, shoves him and sets of into a sea of people throwing curses into the air filled with the sound of honks. 

Tired feet walk on the roads meant for vehicles and worn out tires roll on the pavements meant for people battle out  for space to move on and get to their destinations only to be distracted by the vegetable vendor and his rug selling compatriot and eventually put onto a complete halt by a cow comfortably laying down on a heap of garbage. The street seems like an installation in chaos. It’s a melting point of various identities and backgrounds in a disorganised muddle that allows itself to forget their individual identity and backgrounds completely.

A robust array of culture wrapped in the form of business settlements that is in constant dialogue with its visitors whether they are aware or not. It urges and nudges its purpose onto you just about enough for you to take notice but not enough to be bothered by it. An all white wearing dry fruit merchant in a taqiyah (skullcap) breaks his fast beside his cart outside a temple from which an orange Purohit sends out a prayer. Religious and class differences are set aside to make economic hay and eventually put supper on their tables for the next day. It’s a fusion of human individuality from a wide array of backgrounds soaked in differences that eventually becomes one complete identity.

One can get overwhelmed by how this street even functions. It in fact thrives on its own chaotic state and gives it a unique identity from any other shopping experience. The cohabitation is truly marvellous and overwhelming. But if one might observe this coexistence a little carefully, all of a sudden a much more darker and uneasy understanding arises. Avenue Road is like a minute prototype of how this country functions and exists. In this country thousands and thousands of people pertaining to various numerous backgrounds in culture, class and religion coexist amongst everyday.  It is probably one of the finest examples of  human coexistence but there are still non-tangible lines of separation that form boundaries that separate these disparate backgrounds: especially religion. This thin line that separates all these separate groups could in a blink of an eye turn into a thick violent sword and destroy everything that stands on either side. A mighty turbulence can be suddenly sparked of by something as small as a religious difference between two people. Just a simple line in a text written centuries ago can bring us all down to our knees begging and pleading our own brothers and sisters to stay alive. That is our proximity to catastrophe. The foundations of our coexistence exists on are hardly substantial. We live a fringe coexistence in a nation that has been unconsciously treated to be binded and blinded by non tangible realms of suffocative ideologies that have been placed by a previous conscious effort centuries ago. Its nature is like that of an ember with its alluring subtle glow in the dimness but with one swift flicker of fire can completely change its state into a volatile force with a potential to wipe out everything around it. 

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