Urban decay. From a bird’s eye view, an old city overgrown may look as clean and composed as a modern metropolis. But for an insect on a wall, every surface is a landscape; cracked and scarred, bruised and faded. Paint peels, creepers climb, and dust invades, creating an eerily beautiful  visage of element and age. Historic Fort Kochi has no shortage of crumbling buildings and waterfronts, most of which are still in use. Mattancherry’s spice wholesalers operate out of buildings with as much character as themselves, and ferries come and go from half-sunken jetties of old stone. Any of a thousand walls can be seen as a canvas, small pieces of which may paint a tale of time. 

Paint peeling is a beautiful thing (as long as it’s not in your living room), and this door in Fort Kochi had no short supply. The wood is also scarred, and warped by age, distorting the once-smooth surface into a perfidiously pitted platform.

Paint peels, wood warps, concrete crumbles, plants grow and die, and grow back again; iron rusts.