Slush of portable homes.

Show of Carts and Hand painted signage by Michael Genovese in Chicago, IL. Worth a look…

The Icelink Snow 6 Timezone Watch

The watch problem has resurfaced in a new way: a need for a time piece that depicts time in two or more places. A watch like this seems like a key to some sort of schizophrenia— an admittance that someone is trying to lead multiple lives. I found myself thinking of an old favorite movie, H.G. Wells Time Machine.

Time Machine, a 1960s film based on a novella first published by H.G. Wells in 1895, follows the travels of an English scientist who builds a craft capable of that oh so desirable temporal travel. Clocks of all sorts fill the scientist’s home.  Traveling to the future, the protagonist adjusts rather well to the new era after some initial shocks, then dominates and directs the course of all humanity through his time traveling insights and donnish English morals.  Control of time is equated with control of destiny.

Maybe coincidence that I’ve been wanting to watch it recently and having trouble keeping tabs on everything I’ve left churning in the US as a certain new sort of reality blossoms here in India under the sweaty sun? Everything else is somewhere else and to remind me there is this thought of  a new watch.

The strangest will be when people come and go from the US to here, here in India to the US, because some part of me has fooled myself into believing only a few people can slip through this magic rabbit hole.  When you pop out on the other side there is no doubt it will be topsy turvy and just plain weird.

A recent visit to Pukar  sat me down in front of a small but extremely helpful set of publications from the 2007 Urban Age India Conference that yielded the following helpful stats. in getting an over view of Mumbai:

In Mumbai 6.5 million live in slums. With a population of 13,662,885 that means close to half of the population occupies slum dwellings.

The city is home to over 300,000 street vendors- just a few thousand of whom are licensed.

Dharavi, the city’s largest slum has populations that range up to 80,000 per km squared. 50% of the city lives in unauthorized housing that likely has unreliable sources of electricity and water.  Much of the occupied land is owned by the government, though surprisingly the slum of Dharavi has organized itself to the point of having representatives in government.

When it comes to travel and transport within the city:

3-13% of households have cars (an interesting fact when you come to learn how much money is being spent to make auto travel most convenient).

40-50% of travel takes place on two-wheelers

40-50% takes place on bikes.

The city relies mostly on walking, cycling, and IPT ( Intermediate Public Transport) to get around. The buses seem only half safe- not so much stopping at various streets but slowing down so that passengers hop off when they need to.

For those living in slums 50-75% of travel is walking or cycling.

In my last writing I described my definition of mobility as “any physical or intellectual relocation that allows for new information and sensory experience”. Just for the record I am changing that a bit to:

Mobility in humans includes any physical or intellectual alteration that involves change in location and/or sensory experience.

WHY DO WE DO IT

Mobility in humans springs from two key places:

from necessity: from a need to aquire basic ammenities, and from a need to escape for physical or mental well-being.

from curiosity: desire for new sensory experiences, hope for improvement or variations in setting or understanding that will prove valuable or pleasant.

As in last essay I wrote, I will save my ass by saying that each scneario I imagine is complex and I simplify it for my own means. In the words of Whitman:

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

This said, my next two essays will focus on “mobility in the workplace”, specifically the work of street vendors who fall into the category of those who are mobile due to necessity and to gain basic amenities.