A good traveler has no fixed plans &
is not intent upon arriving
As Lao Tzu would have liked, traveling with no fixed plans and not keen on arriving, is actually the plan we secretly wish to arrive at. We however leave this to the gods of road, rain and roman calendar.
Nagar-Nagar (city-city) is our travel blog that documents our experiences as we travel around India. For us, the motivation for this travel is to feel and absorb India, through our five senses in their raw and elemental forms. Through our sixth or common sense we wish to feel everything else.
This is a journey for us to see and know more of our country. The trip may also become a part of our self discovery as both of us get to know ourselves and each other some more, with each passing mile.
If one is born in a country as diverse as India, traveling across its length and breadth is perhaps one of the best ways to feel the sky above, land beneath and occasional mountains, hills, forests, farms, rivers, oceans and humanity around. With this diversity, we hope to be travellers with keen minds and alert senses.
After our first phase of continuous road travel, we are now in the process of institutionalising the learnings of the road trip, our own experiences and also synergise the same with knowledge of people working in and with cities. In the meanwhile, we continue to travel and add more nagars to our travel list.
NagarNagar has now become part of Nagrika, an indigenous organization that is working to shape unique, authentic, & resilient towns and towards a model of balanced urban local development where small cities gain prominence.
Travellers!
कभी इस नगर में, कभी उस नगर में
कभी बस गया सिर्फ दीवार-ओ -दर में
वो इक शख़्स तन्हा कि जिस का अभी तक
सफर है मुसलसल, ना घर मुस्तक़िल है
Sometime in this city or the other
He settles in between his doors and walls
He is the man who is lonely & for whom
the travel is continuous, & home is not permanent
/ Chandrabhan Khayal in Gumshuda Aadmi ki Talaash /
Both of us relate with the person above in Khayal's nazm. In the last 10 years, we made our home (separately and together) in the walls of multiple cities. However, both of us kept our permanent addresses in the small towns of Panchgani and Rishikesh as we moved around with our temporary pin codes. We grew up in these small towns where space and time seemed to be in harmony with each other. The spaces where one had to go (for work, shop or leisure) seemed to fit neatly into the time one had in a day. As we travel to many of the nagars in India, we wish to understand more deeply that despite the charm and attraction of our small towns, why we invested in staying away from them.
Yutika is interested in understanding the socio-economic fabric that underlies our society. Over the last few years she has been working in the domains of social policy, public administration and governance mostly in India. She has a Masters in Public Policy and Masters in Public Administration from National University of Singapore and Columbia University. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in International Political Economy from University of California, Berkeley.
Tarun is interested in urban institutions, mobility, heritage and cultures. He has been working in the domain of urban policy and has been involved in projects both with the Ministry of Urban Development and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation. He holds a Masters in Public Policy from National University of Singapore. He completed his Bachelor of Arts, Economic (Honours) from Delhi University.