Archives for 2009
- Iswarya Murali Yes, yes, Chennai is hot. And humid. And dusty. And Chennai’s autowallahs are the kings of overcharging. Yes, Chennai, despite the prevalence of pubs and discos, is still probably the most conservative metro in India. But, despite all this(or is it because of all this?) Chennai is the first love of my [...]
- Sangeeta Pillai Lander Displaced? Me? I’ve always dreamed of exotic travel – even when I was a little girl growing up in a crowded one-bedroom suburban Mumbai apartment within a family of five. I dreamed, yes, but never thought it was possible. And wonder of wonders, I now live in another country and I [...]
- Aranyi (Pic via Carl Lee on Flickr) I don’t know if I’ve been attached to any particular city. I was never part of Bombay’s pulse – I always felt as though I led an existence parallel to it. I might wish to be buried on Vassar’s grounds in Poughkeepsie, if I wished to be [...]
- By Siddharth Sarda “When you have lived at a place long enough, every place seems small – a house, a city , a country.” I read the above line in a Chuck Palahniuk novel ,The Diary, and instantly related to it. With the combination of me living in various hostels and my dad having [...]
- Photo & Words by Maneesh Phatak I was born in Bombay. My first few nappy changes brought along a heady rush of smells, sights and sounds as my parents took connecting trains and planes, shifting across the length and breadth of India bag, baggage, two bawling kids and 42 wooden boxes in tow. Pathankot, [...]
- By Joyeeta Patpatia Sometimes your city can displace you. From who you are, how you feel, what you are and what you want to be. I felt displaced in Bombay. Every now and then I dreamt of escape. From the grime, sweat, hard work, tired feet and the noise. Oh the noise. I spent [...]
Click “View in Full Screen’ to see the first issue. Design credit goes to Manoj Damodaran. Stories have been contributed by Dsplaced members. Would love to hear your thoughts!!
By Victoria Cho It buzzes on the lips of financial types barging ahead, beyond, to their next sale; it shines in features and exposes, investigative pieces and commentaries, from the fathers of journalism; it vibrates through my windows from bass-heavy speakers in broken-looking cars; it leaks into my pants as steam through subway vents; it [...]
We are going on a bit of a hiatus. No- we aren’t giving up the site and the project, but are simply re-thinking it. After a year of publishing your stories on this site, we have come to believe that a magazine is perhaps a better home for your heartlfet stories. Not only do we [...]
- Swiss Miss (Happy 10th!) Every year I have fallen a little bit more in love with NYC. I have in the meantime become a true Brooklynite and could not imagine living anywhere else. I agree with John Updike: “The true new yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some [...]
By Sruthi Atmakur, India – US I know, it is a wierd title, but smells are what I seem to associate places with. Memories. I knew I was in India when the smell of dung and beedi hit me… I knew I was back to the U.S. when I smelt some wierd food in Kroger [...]
via NYT New York secretes its fullest range of smells in the summer; disgusting or enticing, delicate or overpowering, they are liberated by the heat. So one sweltering weekend, I set out to navigate the city by nose. As my nostrils led me from Manhattan’s northernmost end to its southern tip, some prosaic scents recurred [...]
- Anonymous I create my own colors Some round, some blue, some coffee, some crude I create my own memories Some familiar, some new, most melancholic, most beautiful I create my own homes Some safe, some near, some too far, and most too happy.
Dalynn on Dsplaced.com I don’t think I told you how amazing Dsplaced is. I check in to read it every now and again. It’s an amazing idea and I hope it continues to grow. I’ve been thinking about the stories and how different experiences affect all of us. I had a thought about what it’s [...]
- Mansi, From being 21 to being 25 Day after day, year after year, I see art being interjected with emotions. Let’s create a bookshelf with hands and eyelids, a chair with legs and confused feelings. Let’s create machines that can think. Let’s create art that lives. Let’s inject souls into the absolutely obsolete and [...]
I lived in the same house for the first twenty years of my life. The first time we moved, is an experience etched in my mind in sharp relief. I remember every moment of it. How I applied for leave to unpack, sitting amidst crates and boxes in my new room, the slow, loving process [...]
I always feared getting a tattoo. The idea of a tattoo – something permanently etched on my body in a whim of youthful fancy – is borderline ridiculous to me. A tattoo, like a marriage, feels eternal. And who knows how life is going to change you, mold you, throw you to the roadside or [...]
I recently went on a three day visit to Coimbatore, where most of my mother’s family lives. Since I was sulking all the way on the train I stared out of the window most of the time and had plenty of time to notice how the scenery changed. I fell asleep after having stared the [...]
(When talking about Paris) I like my town, but I can’t say exactly what I like about it. I don’t think it’s the smell. I’m too accustomed to the monuments to want to look at them. I like certain lights, a few bridges, café terraces…” — Georges Perec
Nietzsche said, “Love is more afraid of change than destruction”. The love for a city, a place, a pigeon hole is so terrified of change. And the logistics is only least of the problems. It takes quite some time to fall in love with the place you’ve moved in. And once you are firmly settled [...]
I’ve been thinking about places recently, and have wondered why all of the towns I’ve lived in still haunt me sometimes. Even though I’m more happy in New York than I remember being anywhere else. It can feel silly. While I was in Richmond last weekend, I felt little pricks of nostalgia every time I [...]
Upon arriving in Finland, I braced myself for an impenetrable language, difficult food, and odd social customs, but I was also shocked by the physical city. I quickly learned that knowing where to look or how fast to walk aren’t universal conventions – these are habits that each city teaches us. The numbered grid system. [...]
A new day. A new adventure Some people thought I was insane to return to America when the economy was sinking, when I could easily get another teaching job in Asia, when I expressed such dislike over New York, and when I consistently praised the cheapness, the beauty, and the kind people of Asia. I [...]
I recently volunteered to participate in an election campaign that took place in Bangalore. As a part of my efforts during this campaign, I saw places with my own eyes that had thus far only existed as figments of my imagination in the visceral recesses of my brain. I saw and met people whose living [...]
Even within Southeast Asia, the distribution of wealth and the availability of resources from one country to another is strikingly clear. I forgot how much better the food is in Thailand, how its 7-11’s would be seen as luxury stories in its neighboring countries, and today I experienced its clean modern hospitals. After all these [...]