Pune to Paris
The Cities We Cannot Keep: A Meditation on Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities
The only cities I've ever lived in are Pune and now Paris. And I'm terrified of a quote by Italo Calvino in his book Invisible Cities: 'Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased. Perhaps I'm afraid of losing Venice all at once if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.'
I'm afraid of describing my beloved Pune to anyone, fearing the loss of its essence. But upon my return, will it be the same? Will I miss the transitional period? As much as I wish otherwise, it'll never feel the same as it once did, and that's disheartening.
The book by Calvino is structured as a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, in which Polo describes to the Khan the many cities he has visited during his travels. However, the cities are not real places, but rather symbolic representations of various aspects of human experience. Invisible Cities is considered a masterpiece of postmodern literature. Let its cities, invisible yet indelible, guide you to rediscover the world and yourself.
