Where is Khirki Extension In Delhi?

By John Cheeran

Delhi is a city of graveyards. Of reputations as well as of people, some of whose names died before them. Empires have risen and fallen in Delhi, the latest threat to the Red Fort posed by a band of activists going by the name of Aam Aadmi Party.

The flavour of the season, unmistakably, is aam aadmi. If someone is missing from Malvika Singh’s delightful book on Delhi, Perpetual City (Published by Aleph, Price Rs 295 Pages 128), it is the aam aadmi. But Premola Ghose’s cover illustration is a beauty and you might buy the book just for it. You will not miss the car with the lal batti!

Delhi, many consider, a disgraceful place, lacking in civility and culture. It is a place for politicians, goes the typical refrain. It is the most unsafe place for women in India. It is also the protest street of India, where a chief minister sits in dharna, demanding the transfer of a few constables.

You cannot also ignore that all that are worth looking up in Delhi were built either by the Mughals or the British. What have Indians or ‘Delhiites’ built and nourished post-partition? May be Arvind Kejriwal should try bringing back Yamuna to Delhi through a Bill. 

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