Start of the Day: Do Cities have souls with memories?

At the start of the day, I thought about cities and wondered. Do cities and places have souls like we do? Or so, I’ve always felt when I think of my love for Kochi though people say it is fast becoming a place that is flawed and devoid of what it once represented to its residents.

When I read Orhan Pamuk’s words, it struck me that I was not nutty at all. In fact, he thinks the same too.

“There are two ways of looking at cities. The first is that of the tourist, the newly arrived foreigner who looks at the buildings, monuments, avenues and skylines from outside. There is also the inside view, the city of rooms in which we have slept of corridors and cinemas and old classrooms, the city made up of the smells and lights and colors of our most cherished memories. To those viewing them from outside, one city can seem much like the next, but a city’s collective memory is its soul and its ruins are its most eloquent testimony.”

How do you view/experience your city?