Introduction

Contemporary Indian cities are largely multicultural, and their urban fabric constitutes for both formal and informal spaces allowing for commercial, residential, entertainment, and other activities catering to various communities and user groups from different socio-economic backgrounds and needs. The entangled nature of these activities and spaces has been greatly altered by the COVID-19 pandemic consequently changing the matrix and dynamics of social, economic, and environmental order of everyday life and activities of its people in an unprecedented manner. The lockdown of cities imposed due to the pandemic is considered unprecedented because of the sheer population of cities and the extent of mobility that happens within and across cities.

However, very little has been discussed in relation to the public spaces which play an implicit yet critical role in the quality of everyday life in Indian cities. At a superficial level, everyday life in public spaces involves ordinary experiences and routines that are taken for granted (Upton, 2002; Sandywell, 2004; Rajendran, 2016). This chapter is developed in the form of a think piece to highlight how examining these ‘mundane’ spaces and the activities performed in those spaces can provide an interesting lens to understand the altering socio-spatial relations and its impact on people's behavioral practices in the pandemic and post-pandemic context. The discussions are mainly drawn upon from a pilot study employing participant observation and photo documentation methods to understand the impacts of COVID-19 on the everyday public spaces in Chennai city, capital of Tamil Nadu, India.

Public spaces and everyday life in Indian cities

Everyday public spaces in India evoke diverse experiences as being noisy, congested, vibrant, robust, busy, and lively. These qualities manifest themselves physically and provide a multilayered structuring of the urban spaces that is organic, multifunctional, and fluid in nature. The very reason why often for a visitor these places are seemingly chaotic, but for a native they embed an inherent order, one which is organically developed through spatial practice, occupation, and negotiation overtime. Studying these complex urban settings and practices using the everyday lens offers a ‘rich repository of urban meaning’ (Crawford, 2008) and facilitates towards comprehending their spatial manifestation and underlying patterns of behavior.

One significant place/space typology which manifests the rich and complex nature of everyday life in public spaces in India are the streets (Tandon and Sehgal, 2017). The