A Street with No Name

This is a story of a street, a street that was slowly disappearing, losing the battle to modernisation and division, a street with no name, and very soon it would be a fleck of memory.

But it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when the street was so alive that you could feel it’s heart beating in the sound of your own.

It housed people of varied ethnicities, varied backgrounds, people with varied religious beliefs, from various parts of the country, various parts of the world. Immigrants who came over with a dream, with a hope of a better life, who made the street their home. It was a place where the artist mingled with the common folk, the dreamers mingled with the realist. A virtual melting pot. But they all lived in peace and harmony. Everyone was  embraced in one warm hug.

The buildings on the street were painted graffiti, a canvas where art was able to express and lend itself to make something so vibrant even more beautiful.

Every festival, every occasion, every triumph was celebrated. People came on the street and danced their hearts all day and all night, all they needed was an excuse to celebrate, to have a carnival.

The street always had a festive air about it. Maybe it was because it was always decorated.

Here death was celebrated as joyously as birth. After all, every aspect of life needed to be celebrated, and in death we celebrate the life that’s gone to a better place, to its maker, no matter what your belief maybe. So they wiped that tear and raised a toast to a life well lived.

On either streets were cafes, where the dreamers and the poets spent hours on end, composing verses of a world they only dreamed of, writing stories and tales that they wished would get published, that would see the light of day on the big screen. Then you had  the lovers, who came in for the coffee but stayed on for a little loving tenderness. You found them in the cafe and in the park with the artists and painters and the kids who came to play.

Finally you had the barbershop and the hair salon where men and women went to not only get their haircut and shave, their hair and nails done, but also for the latest gossip on the street.

The street was a melting pot where everyone mixed and lived in harmony. 

And then politics happened, and the cracks of division began to appear, which were further deepened by those who stood to gain from it for their political motives.

Festivals that were once celebrated in communal harmony, now became a show of one up-man-ship. 

The air was always rife with communal tension. Communities that previously lived together in harmony, now couldn’t stand to live next to each other.

If that wasn’t all, huge cooperations began to eye the place. They looked to expand  their businesses and the street stood in their way.  So they purchased those buildings, with an intention to bring them down. So get the tenants to vacate them, they drove up the rent. 

The first to go where the artist, the painters, the poets and the dreamers, cause they couldn’t afford the rents and began falling behind and were evicted. 

Next to go where those who wanted to go to safe and a more prosperous place, away from the communal tension. 

The last straw was when the street were threatened to be torn down. This was all that was needed to bring back the unity that  had long since disappeared. Everyone, past and present, came together to save their street from the clutches of the ruthless cooperations and politicians.

They put up demonstrations and protests. They put up posters and graffitis, but couldn’t save their beloved street.

So the day before the street was to be torn down, they had one last carnival to celebrate their street, which they loved so much.

Next day when the demolition crew came to bring down the street, they were greeted with a decorated and happy street that was given a proper farewell before it became a memory, a memory of a street with no name.