Thresholds and gates: the space of encounter

How the coexistence of the human and non-human realm shapes the architecture and urban layout in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

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I moved to India in May, 2018 to work in Balkrishna Doshi’s architecture office in Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad is a city of five million inhabitants located on the banks of the Sabarmati river in the desertic region of Gujarat. I lived there for four months, until the end of summer.

 

Living in India means that, most of all, you will have to share your living space with other animals. Cities are inhabited by monkeys, cows, peacocks, elephants and all sorts of creatures. During the time that I’ve spent there, I always found extreme fascination in how smooth and interdependent the life cycles of all the living beings are. Being born in Milan and having spent most of my life there, I was at first scared of the continuous proximity to non - humans1. Eventually, I became used to it, understanding and appreciating the benefits that this cohabitation was giving me.

 

I had often felt that these animals were misplaced in the urban context of the city, that they should have been somewhere else, in the wilderness, far away from humans’ inhabited centres. While reading Animal Spaces, Beastly Places ; New Geographies of Human - Animal Relations (Philo and Wilbert, 2000) I became aware of the term “imaginative geography2” (E.Said, 1978) used by E. Said to express the action of imagining the “right” place for animals in relation to the space of the human kind. In this way we define living beings as pets, wild animals, food, clothes and shoes; by defining their “use” we select the space that they deserve. Such a method of organizing the living being society is widely diffused in the Western regions of the globe, whereas such a clear distinction among territories is less to be found in rural and less advanced settlements3. For example, in India: if on one hand it is possible to claim that the presence of non-humans in urbanized centres is due to the underdevelopment of the country, on the other hand it is impossible to underestimate the power of Indian’s “ritual respect for life”4 (J.L. Kipling, 1904). The majority of the Indian population is Hindu and even though it became always less common to strictly respect the guidelines5 of the religion, most of the rituals are still deeply-rooted in the peoples’ traditions and values. In the same way, it is possible to recognize the attention paid to the living beings in the urban layout of the city. Temples devoted to animal-like divinities, spaces for feeding birds and animals, city farms and hospitals shape the chaotic net of streets, creating spaces of active interaction among the two realms.  
 
This research addresses what is currently the space dedicated to the practices and activities that occur between human and non-human. It also questions if it is possible to find a shared view on the same theme in regions with a radically different social structure. I find it fundamental to give importance and to report my first impressions on the “displacement” of animals in the Indian cities, integrating a “western” sight in the argument. I will therefore relate to the emergence of zoos and menageries in Europe. Counterposed to it, I will analyse the Indian rituals and daily celebrations that bring the two realms together. 

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1 The human society has always placed animals in mental and physical space other than its own, forgetting that the humans are animal s as well. In this research, I will refer to non - humans as animals, and to the “other” animals as humans.

2 find original quotation from Said’s Orientalism 1978, pg. 54 - 55, 71 - 72.
3 “Although those peoples who live a life of ‘being - with’ (as opposed to ‘against’) animals may genuinely have much to teach urban Western societies, it must also be acknowledged that those very peoples ar e themselves incredibly marginalised economically, politically, socially and culturally in global spaces (Shiva and Mies,1993; Tapper 1994; 56).”

4 As stated by John Lockwood Kipling in Beast and Man in India, A popular sketch of Indian animals in their re lation with people. At the same time, Kipling critics the application of the respect for life, saying that “ritual respect for life[…]  is not true humanity, nor it is practised with sufficient intelligence or feeling to profit the animals”. Kipling refers especially to ill animals which are suffering but cannot be killed in respect to the Hindu beliefs. Though, one wonders why K. is referring to ‘humanity’.

5 It is not entirely correct to speak of dogmas in the Hindu forms of religiosity, the Hindu religion is followed more as a lifestyle.

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