Market District (12°58'1.59"N, 77°34'27.93"E)

The labyrinthine streets and dizzyingly chaotic shops of Bengaluru’s commercial zone (or ‘market district’ as they call it now) has not changed in atmosphere or energy one bit since I last went as a young working professional, searching every square inch of every store for the best deal. And when I went in my youth, it had not changed in decades; even back then in the 2010s. This has always been the centre of goods in this great city – whatever you need, you would find. A hundred plates for your niece’s tenth birthday party? Packaging for ten thousand textbooks? Ten thousand textbooks?

It’s 2071 and most people have payment chips in their hands now. Some even have automatic debits whenever they walk out of a store with whatever they’ve purchased. But the market district operates mostly on cash. Yes, you read that right; paper money. You must understand, then, that I am walking through one of the last bastions of old-school physical capitalism. Cash-in-hand. I have no cash, and I can’t see a dispensing machine anywhere. But the smart cookies in this area have devised an elegant solution. It’s obvious, really; just the same way it used to be done back in the day.

I go into a place that sells towels and belts and handkerchiefs and stuff for the older members of society who can’t be bothered to keep up with new advancements in clothing (and, said older members would say, steps backward in fashion.) There’s a person at the counter; a rarity in the modern age. They ask me what I want, I say, “A pack of four hand towels, please”, pick my four favourite colours, and pay about thrice the amount it says on the bill with my comms device (the word ‘phone’ died a few decades ago, of course.) The person at the counter processes the actual amount of the hand towels and gives me the remainder in cash. Simple. Easy. Like how commerce should be.

While browsing at an antique store, I am told that there is a shiny new market facility under the entire district, built by some private parties in an attempt to make the area more organised and ‘up to current standards.’ This is hilarious; as anyone that has had anything to do with cities (residents, planners, even criminals) knows, once an area becomes a ‘place’ with its own rhythm and rules, it’s not going to change unless there is a natural disaster, or worse. That big area was never occupied, obviously; it now forms Bengaluru’s largest flood overflow catchment area. I suspect that makes it more useful than it ever could have been as an actual market.

I keep my cash in my pocket. I think I should buy the paper for the cover pages of this book here. ‘Before The World Ends: Bengaluru’ should have something from here, from this magical place where everything is possible provided you do not suffer from claustrophobia and have some money.

I wonder how much an SRA0 costs.

Publisher’s Note: The page breaks off here and continues in a separate entry with a separate, discrete location code.