34 JUNE - JULY 2019
New Delhi’s buildings and thoroughfares are purposefully constructed
symbols of wealth and power that dictate who’s in charge, maintains
Madhu Jain, as she ruminates on the city’s hierarchy by design...BUILT TO IMPRESS
A
dear friend who lives in
New York returned to
New Delhi after a gap
of a few years and was
amazed by the changes in
the city. “I can’t recognise Delhi. It is no
longer the place I grew up in....” However,
the litany about what is missing is also
endless. “Where have all the old haunts
gone?” Our old compass to navigate the
city is now an anachronism.
We both got our master’s in English
literature from Miranda House before
going our separate ways: she to Mount
Holyoke College in the United States and
I to the Sorbonne in Paris. In our salad
days, we would rarely go directly to our
respective homes after classes at Delhi
University. We hopped off the university
special bus near Connaught Place and
vagabonded the hours away, walking up
and down Janpath, the animated avenue
that led up to Connaught Place.
CP, as it was called then (and perhaps
now as well), was the centre of the
universe for us. And, the centre did hold.
Everything fanned out from the radial
roads originating in the inner and outer
rings of Connaught Place. It was ideal
for flâneurs. Here, the beautiful people
sauntered. The Oxbridge types, who
were home for a bit before returning to
England. Or the other blue-chip ‘suitable’
young men and women going ‘across the
pond’ to the United States: both got the
once-over from us, and others like us.
We are talking elite — the golden
people of the nation’s capital. Or at
least those who thought they were. One
afternoon, we chanced upon Rajiv and
Sonia Gandhi strolling down Janpath —
she, with her swaying, lustrous tresses
and he, with his devastating smile and
full crop of hair. It was 1968, the year that
they were married. There was a spring in
their step. Those were days of innocence,
before assassinations and ubiquitous
security had darkened the road ahead.
If memory serves me right, the
Gandhis were headed towards the
Cottage Emporium. And we, to our
habitual hang-out, Bankura. The cafe,
adjacent to the emporium, was then run
by the ever-enterprising Usha Khanna,
who passed away in 2016. I still long for
the delicious potato mutton rolls and
endless cups of coffee.Structural power
Years later, Khanna set up Cafe Samovar
— arguably even more iconic — at the
Jehangir Art Gallery, where bohemia
and academia rubbed shoulders. The
cosmopolitan city by the sea grew
organically as millions poured in to make
their fortunes and names, a phenomenon
that has been wonderfully depicted
in cinema (particularly by Raj Kapoor
in Shri 420, 1955). The influx increased
considerably after Partition.
New Delhi, on the other hand, was
built by the British when they moved
from Calcutta to Delhi during the early
20 th century. British architects Sir Edwin
Landseer Lutyens and Sir Herbert
Baker designed the Viceroy’s House, as
it was called before being rechristened
Rashtrapati Bhavan after Independence.
The exercise was to design a structure
that made a clear distinction between
the rulers and the ruled.
Viceroy’s House was the nucleus of
power, as was the viceroy. His residence
was built on Raisina Hill, a hillock
overlooking the city and its inhabitants.
It extended downwards, in diminishing
power. Ironically, the British had planned
to rule forever, and had designed it
accordingly. However, impoverished
by World War II and Gandhiji’s
persistent and imaginative demand for
Independence, they had to pack their
bags just a few decades later.
Ever since, successive Presidents ofMadhu Jain,
editor of IQ,
The Indian Quarterly,
is an author and
a journalist.India have lived in Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Moreover, crucial ministerial structures
like Home, External Affairs, Defence
and Finance were, and partially still are,
housed in red sandstone on the hill.
Hierarchy by design endured. It
turned out to be a sustainable principle.
You have only to look at government
housing in Delhi as well as in the
state capitals to realise the extent of
babudom’s quest and determination to
maintain the pecking order. Like caste
marks or the stripes on military uniforms,
the houses you were assigned to ensured
that both you, and everyone else, knew
your place in the scheme of things.
I have lived large chunks of my life
in both, New Delhi and Washington
DC. These capitals of two enormous
countries embody power; they were
devised to do so. Thus, it is always with
a sense of relief that one escapes to
Mumbai or New York City. The soaring
buildings inspire aspiration and ambition.
Both offer anonymity and a sense of
freedom — they are cities on the move.
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre put
it succinctly: ‘You don’t go for a walk in
New York, you move through it; it is a city
in motion. If I walk quickly, I feel at ease
there. If I stop, I get flustered and wonder,
‘Why am I on this street rather than on
one of the hundreds of others like it?’’
I, too, quicken my step, when I go to
Mumbai. My gaze turns upwards, to the
mushrooming high-rises and skywalks.
Delhi, slowly but surely, is following in its
wake. We will probably never catch up, but
we are getting to be more ‘up in the air’.ILLUSTRATION BY GAURAV VIKALP