So in you go to the first gallery where there is a large screen with a slow zoom-in into a grey and featureless sky. Right. Next, there is a dark room in which a set of speakers make modern, humming sounds. Third piece is a large hall in unfinished concrete. Just as you begin to get into the subtle textures of the barely hidden sarias etc, you see a small, bald English bloke making like Harry Potter over a bank of laptops and amplifiers, more modern sounds emerge from some very nice speakers. These merge with a cacophony of truck horns and grunting diesel engines and you think, "Wow, that’s so connected to my reality!" till you realise that it is your reality on the highway outside sending in its music through the large plate-glass windows.
Downstairs, you and friend spot a chink in the throng around the booze. You order and the waiter starts to pour your drink. He is halfway through when a German voice says. "Vun bier pleeze." The waiter leaves your drink half-poured and rushes off. The two of you give up and head back to the city, a long, static shot of a truck exhaust spewing smoke playing before your eyes.
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This piece appeared in the October issue of Delhi City Limits.
