Preface

India is ridiculously diverse. A fact that most outsiders overlook and television programmes fail to convey. They limit themselves to a narrow sample and call it India. Take a step back and the broader picture emerges.
Communism-capitalism-deserts-tropical rainforests-beaches-plains-mountains-poverty-luxury-criminals-goddmen-hindus-muslims-sikhs-christians-liberals-fundamentalists-29 languages- all the extremes and everything within.


Delhi was established by George V, the then Emperor of India, who made the announcement that the capital of the Raj was to be shifted from Calcutta to Delhi. New Delhi was laid out to the south of the Old City which was constructed by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. However much of New Delhi was planned by Edwin Lutyens, a leading 20th century British architect and it has been dubbed "Lutyens' Delhi". Lutyens laid out the central administrative area of the city as a testament to Britain's imperial pretensions.

New Delhi was inaugurated in 1931


Now a noisy and chaotic metropolis of 14 million people, it a confusion of the past and the present. The interesting past still dots the landscape.

One cannot help but be awestruck by the ambitions of the British, We could not. What remains is the architecture and evidently the bureaucracy (without the efficiency).

Here is a modest and personal attempt to capture the rubble of The Raj.