3 - The Sound of Mythmaking: Sonic Media in the Urban Environment

Urban legends are a genre of folklore that stand at the intersection of urbanity and the uncanny. These legends are seeped in urban space and time, containing within them memory, experience, and history of a city. For a city like Delhi, rich with memory, experience and history, such urban legends are far too abundant, for the city has existed long enough in time. But what happens when we consider cities where the timescale is significantly shortened? Can urban legends and myths arise in contemporary neoliberal cities? Is time a necessary precursor for the formation of such myths and legends? For Delhi’s satellite city new Gurgaon / Gurugram, a city which has experienced rapid growth and an increased urban density in merely the last three decades, the time scale is minute when compared to Delhi. Yet the city is imbued with urban experience living through orality and sound. Can sound help reveal existing urban legends in the contemporary neoliberal city, or form new ones? What does the sonic landscape of the city of Gurugram reveal about its urbanity? And lastly, does the media of sound itself contribute to the uncanny experience of urbanity? To answer these questions, I propose to present three recorded soundscape compositions from the city of Gurugram—one anthropocentric and the other two non-anthropocentric. In doing so, I hope to understand the relationship of mythmaking and its containment within media in urban India.