PROJECT OVERVIEW

Author’s Note:

Ever since we started to settle in groups at fixed locations aeons ago, the concept of the ‘city’ has been the single greatest social, economic, cultural and evolutionary device humanity has ever ‘invented’. To enumerate even a fraction of everything that has come from the unique micro-planet that is the urban space would be an impossible undertaking, of course; the intellectual would call it a centre of thought, the practical would call it a centre of work, the academic would call it a centre of learning, the artist would call it the centre of culture, and the pious would call it a blessing.

One would assume then, and rightly so, that the city is an eternal construct; where everything is born, always using itself to go further, make more, think more, evolve. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, cities stop growing. They lose their ambition, the previously eager and youthful spark in their eyes dulls with weariness, they sit down to ‘take a break’ and never stand up again. Perhaps their couch is too comfortable, their work considered done; their rest felt long and well deserved. Such places stay stagnant forever, and their people simply continue to lead their lives. But the city, like some things on our Earth, in those very rare cases, becomes a victim of time, the most relentless force of them all.

Yes, cities do die. People leave. Monies leave. Buildings fall. There is nothing left to do, nothing left to earn. Those who remember a better time and stay behind get old, and time comes for them as well. There can be countless reasons for urban decline; economic ruin, population migration at unprecedented rates, war, cultural bankruptcy, loss of security, water-related doom, even the end of the world as we know it. What we at Urban Gravestones Inc. do under the ‘Before The World Ends’ project is document cities in this process; interviewing them as old, bed-ridden souls as they pour out the colourful tales of their colourful lives one final time, before they can speak no more. They have histories, you know. They were young once, and they fell in love, and their hearts broke, and they worked hard, and they suffered, and they lived. It is only fair that we record them in their fading years, if not for posterity, then in recognition of and respect for the largest working machines humans ever built.

And, this edition of the project brings me after many a decade to perhaps my favourite city of them all. 

My hometown. I’m back, old friend.

Charles P. Chinnappa

January 1, 2071

Publisher’s Note:

Presented in this collection are the contents of Charles P. Chinnappa’s diary as he roamed the greater metropolitan area of the Indian city of Bengaluru throughout the year 2071, noting down his thoughts, reproduced here word-for-word. He did not classify entries by date but by location, a departure from the norm. This is presumably due to the author’s love for their hometown. The author has informed us that he made each entry while physically at the location, besides a few exceptions; this will be mentioned as and when relevant.

Please keep in mind that the locations and place-names that precede and denote each entry follow the historical nomenclature of the mid-21st century (in accordance with naming convention N-202x.) When needed, modern and current names are provided in the titles for clarification, and vice versa.