In Chawri Bazaar in old Delhi, just opposite the dilapidated mansion that once belonged to a paper merchant of great wealth, on the second floor of an undistinguished building, is a mosque of quite extraordinary beauty. One evening a few weeks ago, as dusk fell and the crows were beginning to gather in the trees of the walled city, I followed the writer and historian Sohail Hashmi up a narrow flight of stairs to arrive on a small terrace, the size perhaps of two Delhi buses side by side. Against the western edge of this open space was the mosque's façade, a half-dozen metres long, and as many high. It was beautiful and detailed, the most exquisitely carved sandstone I've seen in a city that has specialised in doing marvellous things to soft stone for centuries. To our left, the incessant honking of the single giant traffic jam that are the roads of old Delhi filtered through a railing, carved with similar elegance - but with giant holes in the arabesque. It looked like it would fall apart any moment. In any truly civilised place, that fence would have been lovingly protected, and shown to children across the city as a reminder of the great things that men can build. But not in Delhi.
India's brash, exploding capital city is, in many ways, a dreadful place to live. One of its few consolations, however, is that so many have tried for so long to survive here, meaning that we residents of the eighth - or possibly ninth - city of Delhi, the one that firmly calls itself New, walk amidst the beautiful remains of their presence, frequently without a second glance. Amidst our squat, ugly colonies stand the graceful tombs of forgotten courtiers; centuries-old walls divide traffic lanes; and our rulers stalk the halls that Lutyens built.
Perhaps it is this familiarity that breeds our contempt for this past, though I think that is too charitable; we have contempt for this past because we believe it is not ours. In the past week, The Times of India's Delhi edition ran a series of articles entitled "Hostage to Heritage". Complete with detailed maps, they furiously attack the "shackling" of middle-class pretensions by heritage laws. Sparked by the Delhi government's attempt to protect another 250 monuments that currently have no legal cover whatsoever, they feature breathless quotes by furious residents infuriated by the colossal burden of living next door to deathless history, and therefore being unable to tack on an extra hideous storey to their house. This is in spite of the National Monuments Authority having just watered down a 2010 law to enable more construction in plots of high-end colonies around that surround protected monuments, effectively defeating the law's purpose, and further cutting off medieval history from onlookers. "Future put on hold for city's past", wails one headline, which demands that the owners of property in South Extension-I, "dotted with protected monuments", be allowed to completely ignore those monuments. One would think that people living next to such history would take pride in it. But apparently pride comes only from a fourth storey on your house.
It is an uncomfortable but inescapable reflection that this dismissal of history does not extend to all religious matters. Beautiful mosques may be ignored, yes. But what was once a charming, simple and spiritual shrine around a tree becomes, in the space of a few years, a tile-covered temple with the word "pracheen" - "ancient" - tacked on to its name. Another few years, and it is a larger, concrete structure, most of it converted into a home for the priest's family, with enough illegally powered airconditioners to make Arvind Kejriwal smile in delight. (Something of this sort has happened next door to where I live in Defence Colony.) A craving for the past is understandable, even laudable; but it seems Delhi would rather invent one that's nice and white-tiled and of the "correct" faith rather than honour the wonderful muddled history it actually has.
This extends, of course, to what the Raj left behind. The buildings of Rajpath, true, the imperial Indian state has appropriated. But we do not really wish to appropriate them emotionally as well. New Delhi is centred around the most glorious war memorial in the world, India Gate, built in memory of the soldiers of the Indian Army who died in the First World War. Everywhere else, the memorials of that first Great War serve as a centre for the commemoration of those fallen in the sadly many wars since. But our forces wish to take over the lawns around the arch to build another memorial - for India Gate is not our own, even though our military otherwise seems to cherish its Raj-era roots.
What our capital could be like if we chose to celebrate all who lived and ruled in the cities of Delhi, at the risk of discomforting those who believe this Republic is the heir of the Mauryas and not the Mughals or the Raj, is visible in depressingly few places. Perhaps only the Imperial Hotel on Janpath comes close, with its three art galleries and lithographs, watercolours and oil paintings of the Company School hanging, with an air of rootedness and belonging, along all its gracious corridors. It is sad that only in a five-star enclave, cut off from most of those who might appreciate it, does the history of Delhi feel complete.
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