Cities and in-built randomness

My favorite way to describe a city is as a complex living organism that fuels the unintentional collision of people, ideas, and stories. This conceptualization was most evident during my recent travels to Mexico City, a fascinating mecca where the interplay of food, culture, ambition, and intercultural exchange is at play. Experiencing the active congregation and celebration of people and life in Mexico City has led me to reflect on my own life experiences in New Delhi, the metropolitan capital of India where my family moved when I was 13 to seek better economic opportunities. As a young boy at the time, I found myself inundated with a multitude of emotions — excitement, overwhelm, confusion, and most importantly, curiosity. In hindsight, I attribute that induced curiosity as the single biggest factor that has asymmetrically influenced the opportunities I have had in life, the choices I’ve made, and more broadly, what continues to fuel my current intrigue for cities and technology.

When I think about New Delhi, and for that matter every city I’ve called home thereafter, and how they have transformed my perception and understanding of the world in ways I could have never have imagined, I constantly find myself unpacking the notion of what a city exactly is and questioning what purpose do cities serve in today’s world. An emergent thread that I find myself to be pulling is the idea of…