Intensifying the urban spirit of parikrama marg

Abstract

Every Indian city has its own distinctive memoryscape, culturescape and heritagescape. These scapes, albeit not entirely unique, capture the essence of every memory & cultural and spiritual fingerprint. Layers of such unique identities have brought about the collective memories identified with a certain place, shaping the cultural landscape as we know it. But due to various technological advancements and centered human comfort with economical motives, these have reduced such beautiful spiritual and cultural landscapes to a mere setting of making money. At such places, ritual enactments of reverential attitudes towards nature and related environmental values are dying out even though modern times have promoted greater travel opportunities for pilgrims, both in terms of numbers and frequency. This gap is studied by taking up the case of Vrindavan, which is an intense centre of spiritual activities in the Braj pilgrimage mandala. The spiritual engagement aimed at by Braj pilgrimage is being affected with the insensitive development that the area is witnessing currently, disrupting the harmonious balance in which culture and nature have coexisted since ages in this landscape. Ultimately, this is rendering the pilgrims with mental, physical and spiritual disengagement with the scapes of the town over and above the fading of place-based collective memories. This disconnect is analyzed by studying the underlying reasons, succeeded by the methods of reclaiming the said landscapes. These can be further taken up to revive other sacredscapes in Indian context, thus, rewriting the tale of the city, reuniting their imagined and real scapes