Burte, Himanshu <br/><br/>
Modernity as whitespace 

 - Seminar   
 - 750, Feb, 2022: p.57-61 
<br/><br/> AT first glance, the term ‘modern’ appears to designate a particular moment in time. That moment, however, is experienced most vividly as space in everyday life. A specific palette of conditions and experiences have long embodied the endless pursuit of modern space in India: abstract geometry, cement, compound walls, among other things. We know this broader space through fragments of experience: straight roads and orthogonal intersections in planned urban neighbourhoods, sometimes with drains and street lighting; the lived network of the railway as well as railway colonies in the middle of different nowheres; glass walls bravely, if unwisely, facing the sun in new city business districts; asphalt giving way to concrete on the expressways; elevated water tanks, and so on. Of course, informal settlements, unserviced but ‘pakka’ peri-urban developments, creakily historic urban districts, and bazaars in the open, all trouble the pretensions of these fragments of clean-slate modernity, as do villages without roads, toilets or primary health centres.- Reproduced <br/><br/>