Inspired by Sankar's roads and highways:
I don't know how to differentiate between a road and a highway; quite unsurprisingly, I don't have the insight Kundera possessed. But I've traveled enough, on the roads and on the highways. When I am traveling on the road, I am not free: I have to constantly take decisions as to which way to turn, where to stop etc. I'm still in the common life that I am always in. But when I am on the highway, I feel a sort of free of myself. I know that the highway has a destination, and that is the same as mine. I just have to go, without effort, without much thought; it is like a river flowing effortlessly to its destination, without worrying about it. In that process, I am free and can see a lot of dreams. During such a journey, my dreams are absolutely "unnecessary", without any particular aims. That is what I mean "I am free". If somebody ask me which is better, a journey on a road or on a highway, I've no answer. I don't know!
Quite recently, I had a long journey on a highway. However, this time, I was not free of thoughts, and was not aimless. I was struggling to make a solid decision on something concerned with my life. Of course, I forgot the highway, the destinations, and myself.... I swear, I will never forget that nauseating journey.
Context is extremely important for a perspective to carry any objective meaning. Your perspective about roads and highways might be very true with respect to the roads and highways in India. It also depends on the associated acts, like, walking and driving, or whether we are the ones who is driving or not, etc. Also, your perspective is about your inner feelings during the acts of driving through a road and a highway, while Kundera’s, I feel, thrusts on the connection that man misses with the ‘outside’ nature, due to his frequent act of driving on highways, in the ‘common life’ in the West.
ReplyDeleteKundera’s perspective is strictly with respect to the roads and highways in the West*. He makes it specific that road is meant for walking and highways only for vehicles. Let’s try to put the “Western” context into picture. While driving through the highways in the West (at such high nominal speeds of 60-80 mph amounting to around 2 km per minute), bulk of our concentration requires to be on maintaining our vehicle inside our lane, that we end up not observing anything other than the lane in front of us. It is more or less true while driving through smaller roads too. Kundera is, in fact comparing between the actions of ‘walking through the road’ and ‘driving through the highway” though the comparison is mentioned just as between ‘roads’ and ‘highways’, without explicitly stating the respective actions. Hence the actions of ‘walking’ through the road and ‘driving’ through the highway is indispensable for his perspective to attain full meaning.
Here we have been putting efforts to walk through many roads that we usually drive through (walking is something very extinct, here in the West, except for the purpose of working out!). The entire geography and the sceneries by the side of the road appear more vast and appealing to the eyes when we walk across them, along the road, than while driving across them. You feel more close to the trees, the air and the soil (you really are, physically); while the act of driving has taken all of these out of our lives in the West.
As Kundera describes, human motion in the West is solely determined by the end points; home and the office, home and the supermarket, home and the restaurant, home and amusement park. You step out of the home directly into the car; you step out of the car at the destination; and you step back into the car, towards home. You miss all such intermediate experiences like, the fresh air blowing lightly on your face, chirping of birds on the trees, the squirrels leaping across you on the footpath, the sound of the dry leaves getting crushed under your foot, the smell of a pretty girl passing by and so on. I think this is just another epitome for this process of man getting alienated from nature, due to something of his own creation-- the technology!
The context is totally different in India, where majority of people don’t use cars at all. The situation might be changing in metropolitan cities where cars are increasingly becoming common among middle class people; still it is very negligible a ratio, when compared to almost 1:1 car to population ratio, here in the West. Walking, cycling etc are still the most common and natural forms of human motion in India, both in cities and villages. Traveling at such low speeds in motor cycles, auto rickshaws or buses, do not steal away the nature from us, not only since we are not the ones who is engrossed in driving, in such public transportation vehicles (exclude the motorcycles); but also since such low speeds don’t serve to defeat time and space.
*By ‘West’, I refer more to USA. Things might slightly be different in Europe, since it is geographically much smaller and since people are now putting conscious efforts to rejuvenate such extinct acts of motion as walking, cycling etc.
Yes, Sankar. Kundera implies alienation occurring to man in modern times. As you said, modern life-style demand (reduce) us to travelers visiting home and office interchangeably without stopping in between. I understand this. Reading the quotes in your blog, I was inspired to interpret my inner feelings in terms of roads and highways! Furthermore, I believe that only solace for us in the above said reductionism of our lives is art and artful thinking and dreaming. I try to do it with my limited capacity, that's all :)
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