“Caribbean arti-facts: Santo Domingo and Kolkata in a backpack?” by Miguel D. Mena
“Caribbean arti-facts: Santo Domingo and Kolkata in a backpack?” was written after a trip to Kolkata in 2007. Landing in the capital of West Bengal to participate in the Kolkata Book Fair, Miguel D. Mena was informed that the book fair had been postponed. A court decision had banned organizers from holding the fair in its historical location in the maidan and no alternative venue had been found. Not the least disappointed by the sudden change of plans, Miguel D. Mena jumped into the streets of the city. During a week, he walked, met with students of the Jadavpur University where he held a workshop on self-publishing, exchanged with fellow writers and publishers from Bengal.
“Each city contains every city” is the opening statement to the text that we share in this blog entry. Recognizing pieces and atmospheres of his own city -Santo Domingo-, in the urban fabric of Kolkata, Miguel D. Mena embarks on a poetic inquiry exploring the parallels in the historical trajectories of two metropolis 15,000 kilometers apart. Both imperial capitals for a short time period, both located temporarily at the center of important networks of commerce, they saw their fortunes change overnight. What Miguel D. Mena finds in the shadows of those glorious past, in the ruins of the Empires that thrived on opposite sides of the Tropics, are societies in constant movement, vital energies and thirst for survival. Looking up close at bodies, at faces and gestures, he sees in the citizens of Kolkata, people closer to his compatriots than to the Indians he had imagined as a kid meditating on street corners and chanting mantras.
A writer, publisher and collector, Miguel D. Mena was born in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, in 1961. Since his graduation in sociology from the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, with the thesis “City, space and power in the Dominican Republic”, the urban condition has been his intellectual passion and main field of inquiry. His PhD thesis from the Freie Universität of Berlin, was published under the title Church, Space and Power: Santo Domingo (1498–1521). He has also written various essays dissecting the urban experience in the Dominican Republic (Poética de Santo Domingo 1, 2 and 3) and analyzing the work of avant garde dominican writers. He has been since the mid-1980s one of the leading figures in the local independent publishing scene. Presently he is chief editor of Ediciones Cielonaranja.
Caribbean arti-facts: Santo Domingo and Kolkata in a backpack?
Each city contains all the cities. Each weave suggests a rhythm, a perception of hands and footsteps that have come from other places.
Each city is like a puzzle built by forcing the pieces together, or like an unfinished melody.
Each city is supported by its own Sisyphus.
Walking around Calcutta, I could easily be in Santo Domingo Este. As I move along Kyd Street trying to convince myself that I'm on the other side of the world, I reflect on how it could be my own city in the 1920's. I tell myself time and time again that I am in a country that has always been, in some way, present in our imagination, from Columbus to the Beatles. I'm in the country of Buddha and Brahma and Krishna, but not everyone is chanting mantras on every corner, the way I imagined as a child.
There is a curious thread that can link both of these cities: both were imperial capitals, they went from ecstasy to the shock brought upon by the abrupt stampede of government officials, commerce, production, the metropolis gaze towards more lucrative heights.
Santo Domingo was the first European city in the New World. Twenty-five years before the conquerors came into contact with the great Mayan and Aztec cultures, they built a city on the banks of the Ozama river, one that fulfilled ancient dreams of order. During that quarter of a century -1496 to 1521- the future America was nothing more than an archipelago -the Caribbean one- where the indigenous population became increasingly rebellious and the gold increasingly scarce. It was during this period that the first black slaves were introduced. Slowly, a creole, multicultural society emerged.
Since its establishment, in 1496, Santo Domingo has known no peace. The greed of European empires always left its mark. The feeling of transitoriness became one of the traits of its people: the idea of living over quicksand, the acceptance of a tropical landscape, but maybe to carry it inside one's pocket. Five hundred years after the establishment of a settlement by the Spanish conquerors, in the twenty-first century, there are nine million Dominicans on the island and nearly two million outside of it.
Situated in the geographical center of the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic has become the nucleus of the greatest migrations in the region. Perhaps this explains its extremes, its permanent identity crisis, from which it seems to derive its strength. ‘Merengue' and bachata' are its most notorious export brands. Today's New York would be incomprehensible without the weight of Dominicans.
I saunter out onto Calcutta streets with all these Caribbean artifacts and structures in my backpack, and with nothing to search for, my senses lighten. People are constantly moving about like ants, on their way to unimaginable places. Despite the hurry and the cars driving on the opposite side of the road -an inheritance of insular British local habits- sometimes I think there's an angel separating rickshaws from other motor vehicles. Celestial mechanics? Most probably.
I used to believe the Caribbean began in the sea and ended with the last black person in Montevideo or on the Peruvian coast. Today I realize that this is not the case. "Caribbean" is a much broader metaphor. Today's "globalization" is yesterday's "Caribbean": mixes, juxtapositions, accelerated rhythms, faces that no longer depend on a palm tree, or a church or a mosque or an altar, but on the streets for their survival. In Kolkata and Santo Domingo I feel the weight of parallel stories: colonial times, the incessant absorption of energies, the way in which single cities will always be many cities. Its students talk about other things and its artists look for something they've forgotten at home.
In Kolkata and Santo Domingo -and I suspect, in all cities between the imperial tropics-, everything is in constant movement, and one won't always have to ask for the address.
*Text originally published in Vislumbres magazine #1 and reproduced with the authorization of the author.
Arte-factos caribeños, ¿Santo Domingo y Kolkata metidos en la mochila?
En cada ciudad están las ciudades. Cada tejido supone un ritmo, una percepción de manos y pasos que se han dado desde otros lugares.
Cada ciudad es como un rompecabezas que se arma forzando las piezas, o una melodía inconclusa.
Cada ciudad está sostenida por un Sísifo particular.
Camino por Calcuta y podría estar en la zona oriental de Santo Domingo Avanzo por Kyd Street tratando de convencerme de que estoy en el otro lado del globo pero pienso que podría ser mi ciudad en los años 20. Me digo una y otra vez que estoy en un país que siempre ha ocupado una parte de nuestra imaginación, desde Colón hasta los Beatles. Estoy en el país de Buda y Brahma y de Krisna, pero no todo mundo anda diciendo mantras en cada esquina, como pensaba en mi infancia.
Es curioso el hilo que puede enlazar estas ciudades ambas fueron capitales imperiales, saltando del éxtasis al choque que significó la abrupta estampida de los funcionarios, el comercio, la producción, la mirada de la metrópoli hacia puntos más rentables.
Santo Domingo fue la primera ciudad europea del Nuevo Mundo, Veinticinco años antes de que los conquistadores contactaran las grandes culturas mayas y aztecas, aquí levantaron, en las orillas del rio Ozama, una ciudad que fue realización de viejos sueños de orden. En ese cuarto de siglo -1496-1521- la futura América no era más que un archipiélago -el caribeño-, donde los aborígenes se ponían cada vez más rebeldes y el oro cada vez más escaso. En este tiempo se introdujeron los primeros esclavos negros. Lentamente fue surgiendo una sociedad criolla, multicultural.
Desde su establecimiento en 1496 Santo Domingo nunca tuvo paz. La codicia de los imperios europeos siempre dejó sus marcas La sensación de estarse yendo fue la marca de sus habitantes: la idea de vivir en tierras movedizas, el asumir un paisaje tropical, pero tal vez para llevárselo en el bolsillo. Quinientos años después del establecimiento de los conquistadores, ya metidos en el siglo XXI, los dominicanos somos nueve millones en la isla y casi dos afuera.
Ubicada en el centro geográfico del Caribe, la República Dominicana ha sabido ser el espacio con mayor corriente migratoria de la región. Tal vez por eso sus extremos, su permanente crisis de identidad, de donde parece sacar su fuerza. El merengue y la bachata son sus marcas más notables para el exterior. El Nueva York contemporáneo seria incomprensible sin el peso de los dominicanos.
Me tiro a las calles de Calcuta con todos estos andamios y estructuras caribeñas en la mochila, y sin buscar nada, los sentidos se me alivianan. La gente siempre está hormigueando, yendo a lugares inimaginables. A pesar de la celeridad y el andar en vía contraria -herencia del localismo insular inglés-, a veces pienso que hay un ángel separando a las rickshas y a los autos de los viandantes. ¿Una mecánica celestial? Lo más probable.
Yo pensaba que lo caribeño comenzaba en el agua del Caribe y moría en el último negro de Montevideo o de la costa peruana Ahora veo que no. La metáfora "Caribe" es más amplia. La "globalización" de ahora es "lo caribeño" de antes: mezclas, yuxtaposiciones, ritmos acelerados, rostros que ya no dependen de una palma, una iglesia o una mezquita o un altar, sino de las calles de la sobrevivencia. En Calcuta y en Santo Domingo siento el peso de historias paralelas: los tiempos coloniales, la absorción incesante de fuerzas, la manera en que las ciudades siempre serán muchísimas ciudades. Sus estudiantes hablan de otra cosa y sus artistas están pendientes de algo que olvidaron en la casa.
En Calcuta y en Santo Domingo -sospecho que en todas las ciudades entre los trópicos imperiales, todo se mueve y no siempre habrá que preguntarse por la dirección.
*Texto originalmente publicado en la revista Vislumbres #1 y reproducido con la autorización del autor.
