Stranger in one’s own streets: Arun Kamal and the anatomy of urban belonging

By Ravi Ranjan* 

In the churn of India’s cities, where construction cranes redraw skylines and familiar landmarks vanish overnight, the question of belonging has become urgent. Hindi poet Arun Kamal captured this disquiet decades ago in his deceptively simple poem Naye Ilāke Mein (In the New Locality). A man loses his way in a newly developing neighborhood. What seems like a minor inconvenience unfolds into a metaphor for the postmodern condition: the dissolution of stability, the unreliability of memory, and the fragility of identity in a world of relentless change.

Kamal’s lines—“Roz kuch ban rahā hai / Roz kuch ghat rahā hai” (“Every day something is being built / Every day something is being lost”)—are not just about bricks and mortar. They are about the collapse of reference points, the betrayal of memory, and the unsettling irony of becoming a stranger in one’s own streets. In today’s India, amid Smart City projects, real estate booms, and suburban sprawl, his words resonate with renewed urgency.

The Vanishing Landmarks of Memory

The poem’s imagery is rooted in everyday navigation: a peepal tree, a ruined house, an empty plot of land, an unpainted iron gate. These are not decorative symbols but functional markers of memory. Yet Kamal writes, “Dhokhā de jāte hain purāne niśān” (“Old markers deceive me”). Betrayal here is not poetic exaggeration but a lived reality. Urbanization erases the very anchors by which communities preserve continuity.

French historian Pierre Nora called such anchors lieux de mémoire—sites of memory that sustain collective identity when traditions fade. In Kamal’s poem, their disappearance signals a rupture. The peepal tree, emblem of longevity, is gone. The ruined house, once a reminder of the past, no longer guides. The empty plot has been filled. Memory itself becomes unreliable. “Yahān smṛti kā bharosā nahīn” (“Here there is no trust in memory”), Kamal warns. In the modern city, even memory is displaced.

Time-Space Compression and Disorientation

British-American geographer David Harvey described capitalism’s “time-space compression”: the acceleration of change that disorients individuals. Kamal’s refrain, “Main aksar rāstā bhūl jātā hūn” (“I often lose my way”), is a metaphor for this disorientation. Development and decay proceed together. What is built is built at the cost of erasure. The world becomes “old in a single day.” Seasons collapse into disorder—spring returns as autumn, Baisakh as Bhadon. The rhythm of time itself fractures.

German sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls this “social acceleration.” The pace of life becomes so fast that permanence disappears, leaving alienation in its wake. Kamal’s abnormal sequence of seasons dramatizes this rupture. The balance between natural and social time has broken. The result is existential bewilderment: a person cut off not only from place but from time itself.

Alienation in the Metropolis

The poem’s hesitant tone—“Aur main har bār ek ghar pīchhe chal detā hūn / yā do ghar āge thakmakātā” (“Every time I set off one house behind / or stumble two houses ahead”)—captures embarrassment and estrangement. German sociologist Georg Simmel described the “blasé attitude” of metropolitan life, where constant stimuli desensitize individuals. Kamal’s protagonist must knock on every door and ask, “Kya yahī hai vo ghar?” (“Is this the house?”). Contact with others is no longer intimate but compelled by necessity. The neighborhood becomes a cluster of strangers, not a community.

This irony—seeking belonging through doors that no longer open naturally—reflects the broader crisis of urban anonymity. Migration, temporary housing, and fractured communities intensify the sense of being unmoored. The poem’s protagonist is not alone; he is emblematic of millions navigating India’s new urban labyrinths.

Risk Society and Environmental Collapse

Kamal’s urgency crescendos: “Samay bahut kam hai tumhāre pās / Ā chalā pāņī dahā ā rahā ākās” (“Time is very short for you / The water has started coming, the sky is collapsing”). Here the personal merges with the collective. Ulrich Beck’s “risk society” theory explains how modern development generates new insecurities—floods, pollution, climate crisis—born of human progress itself. Kamal’s collapsing sky and rising waters are not metaphors alone; they are lived realities in India’s flood-prone cities and smog-choked suburbs.

The poem’s final line—“Sāyad pukār le koī pahcānā ūpar se dekh kar” (“Perhaps some familiar person may call out after looking from above”)—offers faint hope. Yet even this hope is uncertain, marked by “sāyad” (perhaps). Zygmunt Bauman’s “liquid modernity” comes to mind: relationships and identities no longer solid but fluid, temporary, fragile. Communality weakens. Belonging becomes provisional.

The Existential Irony of Urban Life

At its core, Naye Ilāke Mein is not about losing one’s way geographically but existentially. To lose direction in one’s own locality is to lose identity in one’s own world. The poem’s simplicity—short sentences, conversational tone, repetition—conceals profound philosophical weight. “Losing one’s way” becomes the central symbol of modern life: a crisis of memory, identity, and belonging.

The artistic beauty lies in transforming ordinary experiences into extraordinary meanings. Everyday images—houses, gates, trees—become dynamic, constructing and dissolving meaning simultaneously. The poem’s rhythm embodies wandering and hesitation. Its paradoxes—building and losing, present and past—concretize the irony of modernity. Kamal’s craft is understated but incisive, rooted in the authenticity of experience.

Why Arun Kamal Matters Today

In India’s current urban moment, Kamal’s poem reads less like literature and more like social commentary. Smart City projects promise efficiency but often deliver displacement. Real estate expansion fuels instability at the socio-cultural level. Migrants, tenants, and marginalized communities find themselves strangers in their own cities. The protagonist’s confusion—knocking on doors, searching for vanished landmarks—mirrors the collective disorientation of millions.

Kamal’s work reminds us that urbanization is not only about infrastructure but about memory, identity, and community. Development without continuity breeds alienation. Progress without belonging breeds crisis. His poem is a sociological document disguised as verse, a critical voice in today’s India.

Toward Resonance and Belonging

Hartmut Rosa proposes “resonance” as a counter to alienation: slowing down, reconnecting meaningfully with the world. Kamal’s faint hope of recognition—someone calling out from above—gestures toward this possibility. Even amid collapse, the chance of being recognized, of belonging, remains. But it requires deliberate effort: preserving memory, sustaining community, resisting the erasure of identity.

The challenge for India’s cities is not only to build but to remember. Not only to expand but to belong. Kamal’s poem insists that without memory, identity, and continuity, development is hollow. The stranger in his own streets is not just a poet’s protagonist; he is the citizen of modern India.

Conclusion

Arun Kamal’s Naye Ilāke Mein is a mirror held up to India’s urban transformation. Its simplicity conceals depth; its everyday images reveal existential crises. In a single day, the world becomes old. In a single street, the familiar becomes foreign. The poem’s power lies in its ability to turn ordinary disorientation into a profound meditation on belonging.

As India builds, it must also ask: what is being lost? As houses rise, what memories fall? As cities expand, who becomes a stranger? Kamal’s voice, quiet yet urgent, reminds us that the true measure of development is not only in concrete and steel but in whether we still recognize our own streets—and ourselves—within them.

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*Professor & former Head (Retd.),Department of Hindi, University of Hyderabad. This is the abridged version of the author's original paper