Poems on the underground

I sometimes try and imagine what life in Bombay would be like if we were kinder more patient people I acknowledge the gullibility of that wish given how difficult it is to function in a city that does not encourage kindness but I think about it nonetheless Whenever this happens one of the solutions that comes to mind involves access to art or literature I hold on to this fond and foolish notion that people who can experience something profound may start to look at the world differentlyItrsquos not as if I am aware of how little we value art in India of course given our traditional disdain for what our forefathers have left us But still whenever I look at cities that manage to pull this off I am compelled to ask if itrsquos merely a question of cause and effect Would we appreciate art or literature more if we just had more of it in our daily livesThere are some precedents that point the way towards how this could be done if we were to take it seriously Consider London for example where a project that began in 1986 continues to have a subtle impact on how people in that city commute The idea of lsquoPoems on the Undergroundrsquo came into being because some writers believed that poetry ought to have a wider audience I applaud the determination with which they brought this to life because I know it couldnrsquot have been easy As we have seen for many decades in Bombay great ideas have little value or meaning if they canrsquot be executed and almost none of them can when there is some form of bureaucracy involvedI suppose those writers in England must have worked on multiple proposals changed them a few dozen times and banged their foreheads in frustration for months before meeting with limited success What matters ultimately is that they prevailed and that they initiated a project that continues to inspire others There are multiple cities around the world that have tried to replicate that model over the years from Paris and Dublin to Oslo Toronto Barcelona Mexico Vienna Singapore and a few other cities across America Even the Shanghai Metro supposedly transforms its train carriages and stations into moving art galleries by displaying classic and contemporary poetryUnfortunately any happy thoughts about bringing a version of this to Bombay are almost immediately undercut by the knowledge that it is doomed to fail Irsquom not trying to imply that this is a city of philistines far from it Irsquom simply referring to the hardwon knowledge that this is a city where good intentions often die when confronted with the brick walls of the BMC and the government of Maharashtra Remnants of these ideas are scattered throughout the city and can be observed on rides through any suburb Take your pick from abandoned murals meaningless installations or confusing public sculpture Irsquom sure they must have all begun with the hope of bringing something beautiful to the peopleLetrsquos assume a project like lsquoPoems on the Localrsquo were to come into being by some massive stroke of luck Letrsquos assume some politician were to sign off on it and allocate a small amount of money for it What are the chances that the poems themselves would start to become controversial within a year or more realistically a few months before an election How long would it take before someone started to take offence at the poems that had been chosen How long until there would be demands for some poems to be rejected in favour of others or for some languages to be given more attention or for some poets to be removed from the list entirely for perceived slights Also how soon would funds start to be misappropriatedThen therersquos the possibility of vandalism a risk that appears to have existed since I first began taking local trains a few decades ago It often seems to me as if the people of this city have a perverse need to damage anything that appears to be clean or beautiful Itrsquos why even a designated World Heritage Site like the Elephanta Caves struggles to escape from the unwanted gaze of people who insist on scratching their names on the walls of those ancient cave templesMaybe Irsquom just too much of a pessimist but I still hope for change and the possibility of something that can make Bombayites stop and smile for a minuteWhen he isnrsquot ranting about all things Mumbai Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet He can be contacted at wwwlindsaypereiracomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper