44. Age of Concrete

Never in known history has a single innovation of man come to dominate lives in this way. Never before have we witnessed an erosion of our contemporary place making. Childhood spots now a mall, playgrounds now residential societies, roads barely navigable as establishments mutate on either side, we truly are living in the age of concrete.

Saanvi and me were travelling to a nearby town, still deep in the hinterlands of Central India. But I could get the drift of her observation. She was right. Even in this remote corner, standalone shops were coming with alarming frequency, with most shops sitting awkwardly on erstwhile rice fields. As we crossed the last of the Sal trees and were truly on our way back to civilization, I recalled an earlier era.

Long back, I had taken this same journey via Amarkantak through to Bilaspur and Raipur on my way to Calcutta. I could write a small thesis on the changes observed on this road, so immense were they. Building upon buildings, woefully constructed, never likely to be insured by a sane insurer, changes that would take years to manifest now occurs in weeks, if not days. And I have lost my road many a time due to this rapid change in our landscape. Delhi being my favourite bhool-bhulaiaya now.

I remember nothing of the Delhi of my childhood. Flyovers creating borders amongst neighborhoods, buildings that come up in a jiffy, South Extension no longer looks the same and the outskirts seem to be bulging with cancer. If not for the Lal Quila, I would be lost here.

She snaps back and reels out some exotic data. While we rub off transport or energy as the main source of greenhouse gas emissions, industries that feed into construction such as iron, cement, electricals perhaps are equally if not more poisonous for our lives.

She adds, But it is not just the unrelenting speed and audacity of this building wave, all old markers of life, of our cultures and even civilization seem to be smothered under this gravity defying growth. We have no memories left and everything looks the same. Unsightly buildings falling against each other, often poorly constructed yet wonderfully homogenous wherever we turn our eyes. Hubli or Nagpur, Guwahati, or Salem, it is the remarkably similar buildings that keep us occupied in travel now. And have you noticed, “Rarely if any of these shops vary in the wares they stock. Usually, dealers in iron products, construction equipment, car showrooms, paint shops, repair stations, petrol pumps, TMT Sariya, Hero Cement, Naresh wood works, Murugunatham finance rule the roost. Where do we buy pencils or rulers now? Where do we repair our iron boxes now? Where is the neighbourhood repair shop? They seem to have vanished. Ask for a refill for your ball pen and you are likely to be shamed.

The industrialized world seems content in its belief that we need nothing but these building blocks of the construction and transport industries to run our lives.

I agreed with her. It was hard not to agree with her. She said the right thing even if people did not like it. But ask these questions to a corporate worker in the cities and the answers will be different. Most will opine that we need these for our future. This is how we grow.

I wondered if the age of concrete, synonymous with our times punches above its weight to accelerate the age of extinction.