The enthusiasm to compare the personal relationships among individuals in villages with the distinct lifestyles of certain specific cities is steadily rising from the depths of my mind.
This very writing is happening due to some surging impulse. Although it is true that I have not clearly discerned the precise goal of this writing, I have deliberately crafted a clear purpose for it in my own mind. Nevertheless, it does not seem that the source of these waves of thought lies solely in the depths of my own mind. Rather, it is undoubtedly a stream flowing from some external repository of knowledge.
The urge to weave one or two points about personal relationships in villages into the course of this writing is steadily rising within my mind. It feels as though this information is yearning to break free. Therefore, once that is written as well, I shall return to Tellicherry.
In India’s metropolitan cities, there exists a social atmosphere—slum dwelling—that is not distinctly visible in smaller towns. The images that arise in my mind are of Bombay, Madras, and Delhi. While it can be said that the social scenes observed in these three cities are entirely different from one another, for those knowledgeable about such matters, the clear influence of the local feudal languages in each of these cities is discernible.
This writing does not now venture into the distinct differences among the slum dwellings of these three cities. Instead, it merely examines a small common aspect among them.
When viewed through linguistic codes, slum dwelling often feels like living on the edges of streets. In feudal languages, an individual, a group of related individuals, or a family requires a great wall, manpower, physical distance, or clear social superiority to remain apart from others in the outside world. The issue lies in the respect-degradation word codes. Without any of the aforementioned shields, others will define one through degrading word codes.
This is something absent in English. This matter is indeed grotesque. Pretending otherwise is futile.
In the city of Delhi, it generally seemed that there were more than two types of slum dwellings.
One is as follows:
On one side of a road stand residences of immense financial capacity, spaced apart. On the opposite side of the road, there are concrete buildings as well. However, these are houses stacked like matchboxes atop one another. Families live in close proximity. It is a physical condition where individuals cannot avoid those nearby, neither in sight nor in thought.
Similar situations, where individuals and families lived in such close quarters, occurred intermittently in certain areas of England during the World Wars. However, there was a clear difference between the situation in Delhi and that in England at the time.
In England, people then spoke English, not a feudal language. In Delhi, the language is Hindi—a language imbued with feudal codes dripping with demonic qualities, combined with respect codes capable of encasing human individuality in golden cages, possessing both the fierce beauty of a venomous serpent and its treacherous venom.
IMAGE: An air raid shelter in a London Underground station during The Blitz, 1940s.
The clear difference in personal relationships on either side of the road can be described as follows:
On the side with immense financial capacity, people reside in houses. They maintain distance from one another. They interact only with those they are interested in. Although Hindi’s respect-degradation codes are active here as well, one can often choose whom to engage with. Those eager to speak without respect can be avoided or ignored. One can interact solely with those of similar mental, intellectual, informational, or financial standing.
Each household may also have workers defined by degrading word codes. These workers elevate the residents of the houses they serve through word codes.
When young people from these houses sit in their gardens or elsewhere, the subordinate workers or others do not approach them with degrading word-code-laden questions such as, “What’s your name?”, “Which is your house?”, “Is she your younger sister?”, or “Where does he study?” to disturb them or attempt to bolster their own barren self-respect and individuality. Often, words like “app” or “tu” are used by the subordinate crowd when addressing the young people from the upper crowd.
There is much more to say about this matter. These are issues that have even paved the way for large-scale communal riots in northern India. I cannot delve into them now.
Now, let us examine the situation on the other side of the road.
Individuals—women, men, young people—live as though on the edges of streets. The social relationship codes on this side of the road are akin to a black hole, where all physical distances between individuals vanish in word codes, pressed tightly together. Clear respect-degradation codes are forcefully imposed. Some must be mandatorily respected, meaning one must proclaim oneself as inferior. Those respected, in turn, speak and refer degradingly.
In a socially expansive area of meagre dimensions, individuals and their personalities throb and create a constant clamour.
There may be prominent individuals in this area as well—those respected by many or possessing great financial capacity. However, they cannot leave this space. If they move elsewhere, they lose the crowds that elevate them through word codes and those they degrade through word codes.
In such cities, a residential address is a matter of great value determination. I once met an individual living in an area with two distinct social structures on either side of a road. He was genuinely a member of a financially capable household but, after a conflict with his father, left home and came to Delhi to work and live. He spoke English fluently. Consequently, he openly shared many things with me. This person lived right next to the road, separated from the financially capable side by merely the road’s distance.
The two sides have distinctly different residential area names. He said that when asked where he lived, he would give the name of the area on the wealthier side.
People from the wealthier side often pretend not to see those from the other side. If those from the poorer side unnecessarily try to make eye contact, those from the wealthier side avoid locking eyes, letting their gaze pass through without allowing their eyes to touch.
The reason for this avoidance is genuinely tied to the software codes of reality. I will elaborate on this later.
This matter concerning eyes is growing in many areas where feudal language speakers spread. It seems that even in England, some English people are beginning to adopt this practice.
Those on either side of the road are humans, individuals, Indians. So why do those on the wealthier side maintain such distance, and why do those on the poorer side have an insatiable desire to reach equality with those on the wealthier side?
It must be noted that if those on the poorer side express their individuality with clear and unwavering subservience, those on the wealthier side will not ignore them. Conversely, those on the wealthier side fear those who, while standing on the poorer side, express equality in word codes and body language.
Some individuals from the wealthier side could form friendships with some from the poorer side, as they may find similarities in personality. However, those on the wealthier side understand that crossing such boundaries for personal relationships is dangerous. If they do not understand, experience will soon bring wisdom and discretion.
Those on the poorer side genuinely live entangled in many rigid and immensely powerful relational chains. Word codes bind them in this manner. If someone from the wealthier side forms a friendship with such an individual, the chains binding that person will, either immediately or gradually, spread to the new person.
When that happens, one cannot ignore the eyes of many. In feudal languages, eyes can seize an individual to elevate or paralyse them.
The latter is a demonic ability of the eyes. Feudal languages grant this ability to the eyes.
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