Royal Realtors: Is Real Estate a Drug?
From the Samsung Galaxy Mobile Phone of Vitasta Raina
Time: An evening calm
Date: Irrelevant
People see the stars when they look up to the skies from their balconies and the stars become their wishes and their hopes and their conspiracies, and they hold their coffee mugs and they know that life, no matter how brutally real, will be alright. I, on the other hand, have this newly constructed 22 floor monstrosity being constructed opposite my building and all I can see in the quiet, lonely evenings in my suburb is the bright red neon sign of the builder. Royal Realtors. It's almost as if they own my share of the sky. That sign is all I see, looming overhead, every time I sit in my tiny enclosed balcony, and it makes me quite sad.
I haven't seen the stars really, in a very long time. No matter which city I travel to, they all disappear under a blanket of smog. The hazards of an urban life. I wonder where it will all end. Sometimes the moon shows up, all festive and round, like a shining 1 rupee coin in the sky, dominating for a few brief hours the entire city scape, other times it becomes part of the celestial street light parade and we are left wondering if all the heavenly bodies have abandoned us. The lookers on earth, struggling in dirty cities. Faithless.
There is a Participatory Rural Appraisal workshop I need to attend this weekend. Off in some remote village, I think I might get a glimpse of the sky there, but the dust that surrounds us all has far reaching consequences and I fear that the stars may yet not appear, and we will forever live in a sort of darkness. I see pictures of places where the stars dominate that darkness of the firmament on my computer, and it makes me numb with want because I know I may never encounter such sights in my lifetime, that I may never get a chance to be there in flesh and blood, to experience that wonder, that flush of light, of a silent streaking meteorite and that I can then perhaps never make a silly wish. I can never become a child again.
Lately I have been toying with this idea of buying a telescope, a cheap land and sky device, and taking it with me to the beaches of Goa, to sit there in a small wooden shack with a thatched roof and gaze at the distant stars and planets. I hear there is no smog there, and the air is still fresh, but in the heaviness of my days in the University and the amount of time I need to spend finishing my pending work, that beach just seems a tad too far, in time and perhaps even in space.
I have become quiet now, disenchanted with my surroundings for I find no real magic existing anywhere, perhaps nobody does anymore. We all just wake up and wait for the next thing to occur, we all just curl up and become the new trend. Catching up with the business of work, of chasing dreams, of our enduring habits, of our own grief that we cannot even define. I think we are a generation that tried to run too fast when we were younger and now are just sitting around looking at the staleness of our constructed lives. A generation that has now come to head. That now leads and brings up children, what will we teach them; who will teach us anymore.
I don't know who I am anymore. And I don't know where the rabbit went. I want that magic back, but I think it's time to look for a different kind of magic. I hope I can find it soon. Mayeb we just need to accept the surreal reality of the situation. Maybe we need to consider the Great Real Estate Swindle? Is the real estate industry like a drug?
Time: An evening calm
Date: Irrelevant
People see the stars when they look up to the skies from their balconies and the stars become their wishes and their hopes and their conspiracies, and they hold their coffee mugs and they know that life, no matter how brutally real, will be alright. I, on the other hand, have this newly constructed 22 floor monstrosity being constructed opposite my building and all I can see in the quiet, lonely evenings in my suburb is the bright red neon sign of the builder. Royal Realtors. It's almost as if they own my share of the sky. That sign is all I see, looming overhead, every time I sit in my tiny enclosed balcony, and it makes me quite sad.
I haven't seen the stars really, in a very long time. No matter which city I travel to, they all disappear under a blanket of smog. The hazards of an urban life. I wonder where it will all end. Sometimes the moon shows up, all festive and round, like a shining 1 rupee coin in the sky, dominating for a few brief hours the entire city scape, other times it becomes part of the celestial street light parade and we are left wondering if all the heavenly bodies have abandoned us. The lookers on earth, struggling in dirty cities. Faithless.
There is a Participatory Rural Appraisal workshop I need to attend this weekend. Off in some remote village, I think I might get a glimpse of the sky there, but the dust that surrounds us all has far reaching consequences and I fear that the stars may yet not appear, and we will forever live in a sort of darkness. I see pictures of places where the stars dominate that darkness of the firmament on my computer, and it makes me numb with want because I know I may never encounter such sights in my lifetime, that I may never get a chance to be there in flesh and blood, to experience that wonder, that flush of light, of a silent streaking meteorite and that I can then perhaps never make a silly wish. I can never become a child again.
Lately I have been toying with this idea of buying a telescope, a cheap land and sky device, and taking it with me to the beaches of Goa, to sit there in a small wooden shack with a thatched roof and gaze at the distant stars and planets. I hear there is no smog there, and the air is still fresh, but in the heaviness of my days in the University and the amount of time I need to spend finishing my pending work, that beach just seems a tad too far, in time and perhaps even in space.
I have become quiet now, disenchanted with my surroundings for I find no real magic existing anywhere, perhaps nobody does anymore. We all just wake up and wait for the next thing to occur, we all just curl up and become the new trend. Catching up with the business of work, of chasing dreams, of our enduring habits, of our own grief that we cannot even define. I think we are a generation that tried to run too fast when we were younger and now are just sitting around looking at the staleness of our constructed lives. A generation that has now come to head. That now leads and brings up children, what will we teach them; who will teach us anymore.
I don't know who I am anymore. And I don't know where the rabbit went. I want that magic back, but I think it's time to look for a different kind of magic. I hope I can find it soon. Mayeb we just need to accept the surreal reality of the situation. Maybe we need to consider the Great Real Estate Swindle? Is the real estate industry like a drug?
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PS
I have worked in the Mumbai RE industry back in the days of the Boom. Once you crunch numbers, accommodating for the minimization of premium spaces, squeezing inner light and ventilation ducts to the minimum required subhuman standards, you will never be the same again. Sometimes I look back at that world, and it's a glorious spectacle of all things unmentionable, deeply held secrets of land deals, dark like only the colour of currency can make it. It smells!
The sort of smell that entices you but hollows your insides at the same time, like petrol fumes, and to come out of the spell of its intoxicating chimeric mirages unscathed is impossible, for like a drug, if you have ever felt that rush of blood filling the narrowest crevices of your brain or the margins of your bodily soul, erupting like a volcano with every breathe, you would live your life inside the sanctity of society's supporting folds and fabrics, but you would never stop dreaming of those monsters in the nights, sculptures of sand, dreams of paper boats floating down red waters of a canal as you stand atop an old brick arched bridge watching them dissipate into a horrid orange landscape. And Real Estate does!
Real Estate peddles dreams, vocabularies enriched with hope and aspirations, blue plastic dolphin clouds reflected across shimmering glass towers, men hugging men, women showering roses on doorsteps of houses that will become homes, standing over cooking ranges in bath towels, diamonds glimmering in the eyes of children racing across parks in photo-shopped community guilds. You did this didn't you, this delirium, this half-dream-half-reality, this human dignity that only money can buy, this tree of confusion, this higher plane of existence. We do not erode, do not decay, we're non-biodegradable, this façade is not plastic, it's eternal, like diamonds. If I could squeeze all my hope, all my love, all the things that I cannot describe in words, All the helplessness and fragility of the universe, all the tears and prisms and wisdom of life, and if I could package and present it to you, what would you say, or feel, or do? What would I?
Masterfully Created Villas- The brilliant jewels in our Crown.
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| Real Estate Advertisement. Image Source: www.jwt.com |
And for when the diamonds and pearls don't work, I'll get you the stars!
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| Real Estate Advertisement. Image Source: DLF |
Is the Real Estate Industry trying to buy your love? You know there is something wrong when the rickshawman outside the gate cannot pronounce the name of your society 'Belvedere Towers'.
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From Bombay, with love.
Can you feel my love buzz?
From Bombay, with love.
Can you feel my love buzz?
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