Sidewalks, as Canadian-American author Jane Jacobs puts it, are where people come together. “(They) bring people who do not know each other together in an intimate, private social fashion,” she writes. Such street-play is obvious in many of India’s populous cities — from Mumbai, Varanasi and Ahmedabad to Jaisalmer. The idea of a ‘public place’ is fluid in India, unlike the defined European piazzas. So, a city displays the many layers it inhabits on its streets. As the sun rises, city life slowly unfolds — and the start of day can be seen in various forms on the streets. The owner of a commercial unit, for instance, prays publicly, as someone cleans the roads. Sometimes, the town’s topography defines its life, as in Pushkar, where streets run in concentric circles around it. Indian streets are accommodative of animals as well as humans. This is evident in Varanasi, where one has to make space for cows to pass in the city’s maze of lanes.

The public and the private aspects of a place are diffused during festivals and holidays in India. The stretch between Bhadra Fort and Teen Darwaza in Ahmedabad comes alive on Sundays and the variety of activities taking place there gives a peculiar vibrancy to Old Ahmedabad. A street in Girgaon, Maharashtra, on Gudi Padwa witnesses people coming out of their homes and reclaiming the space.

Architect Balkrishna Doshi compared buildings to a living organism; I believe the same can be said of cities. The streets, then, become the arteries that course through them.

Rohit Lahoti is a Mumbai-based photographer and architect

Bazaar life: Teen Darwaza in Old Ahmedabad is where residents shop for cloth; it also offers good deals in branded goods

Life goes on: The Jaisalmer fort in Rajasthan, also a Unesco World Heritage Site, is one of the few ‘living forts’ in the world. Hundreds of families continue old structure

In deference :A two-way street in Mumbai organically transforms into a one-way lane during Friday namaz

The beginning: Gudi Padwa, the Marathi New Year, finds the local population participating in parades, and getting together to greet friends and family

One world: Varanasi’s streets function as extensions of the houses that line them on both sides. It is not uncommon to jostle for space with cattle and other animals as one navigates these narrow alleys

Moving on: It is common to see women walk in groups in rural Rajasthan as they go about their daily chores. An image from the outskirts of Udaipur

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Pause effect A brother-sister duo feeds pigeons amidst the chaos of the Dadar railway station in Mumbai