We received over 200 entries from 114 cities across the country, each offering a different way of seeing and understanding a city.

The witnesses that emerged were as varied as the cities themselves narrating stories of change, memory, everyday life and the places that make a city what it is. We had a rusted red lamp-post at a three-way junction witnessing six-lane asphalt erase sacred banyan shade in the city of Tilhar.

We had a Narmada Ghat witnessing the receding Sal forests of Satpura, listening to the unsaid emotions of ancestral memories, and watching an old river shore transform from quiet forest trails into the noisy tarmac of modern transit in Mandla. We also had a 124-year-old stone chautara in Kalimpong, witnessing generations come and go-from mule trains and misty monsoon rains to political agitations and the departures of youth.

An industrial titan also bore witness to Kolkata’s evolving soul-watching partition refugee colonies take root, assembly sirens yield to morning fish and vegetable bazaars, and deindustrialisation give way to app-based gig workers and electric autos.

Meet the writers whose stories brought their cities to life, and see their cities through their eyes.

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