ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I examine the culture of Indian streets to provide a contrast to the
Western streets considered elsewhere in this volume. It is important that explorations
of the street should not blunder into the ethnocentric pitfalls of so many social and
cultural theories, which examine distinct Western contexts and produce ideas that
are taken as universally applicable. My principal aim is to highlight the increasingly
regulated qualities of Western street life by examining the rich diversity of social
activity in Indian streets. It is not my intention to idealise or romanticise the Indian
street as a space of the 'Other' but I realise that my position as a Western scholar
will leave me open to the charge of 'othering'. I recognise that Westerners seek out
the different experience offered by the Indian street partly because they have consumed
fantastic narratives and images of India. However, I go on to argue that these socially
constructed preconceptions may be mediated or undermined by the sensual and social
experience of space. This is part of a wider argument which insists that streets are
not merely texts to be read. Those passing through, living and working in streets
interpret their experience through social, sensual and symbolic processes. Thus, whilst
the description I provide of the Indian street is necessarily general, it is not intended
to convey any ideal, and although it may seem as if I am reinforcing a binary distinc-
tion between West and 'Other', I insist that the material and social distinctions
between Western and Indian streets do exist, but they exist within an uneven global
process whereby space is becoming more commodified and regulated.
