Word: hindu
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...moon. But backbreaking poverty remains all too evident, the country still has only 3,000 km of freeway, and finding enough water to drink is an annual battle for tens of millions. (Oh, and there are no real-life plans for an Indian lunar landing.) There's a handy Hindu concept to explain these paradoxes. Maya means wonder, as in Mayanagri (city of dreams), the Hindi nickname for Bombay. It also denotes a willful fantasy - of the kind, for example, that would have a U.S. President last week expressing his "joy" at seeing the new India while in Delhi...
...will rarely have any idea of what's in their backyard. The city authorities may not be much help either: a policeman in the heart of Delhi recently assured a bewildered tourist that the photo of the marble-domed building in a guidebook showed the Tomb of Hanuman, a Hindu monkey god. (It's actually the Tomb of Humayun, a 16th century Mughal Emperor). That's why Lucy Peck's Delhi: A Thousand Years of Building is one of the best things in years to have happened to Delhi's architecture enthusiasts...
...present, the book shows how Delhi accumulated history like geological strata. So, following Peck's road map, you can wander through the market of Chandni Chowk in old Delhi, taking note as you pass in quick succession a Jain temple where sick birds are treated, a Hindu temple, a Sikh gurdwara, a mosque and a British-era police station (a McDonald's has also opened on the road). As Peck understands, it's this juxtaposition of the present and the past, of the mundane and the macabre, that is Delhi's special delight for art and history buffs...
...dynasty that was routed by a small Mughal force in 1526) up to the gorgeous Safdarjang's Tomb (built for a Prime Minister who started a civil war during which Delhi was plundered by invaders), and continue along the even-posher Prithviraj Road (named after the city's last Hindu ruler, who lost his kingdom in 1192). Delhi's kings lost their thrones and heads with remarkable regularity, a phenomenon that is still repeated every few years during India's general elections, when modern India's Prime Ministers discover, too late, just how little protection the city's massive battlements...
...museum has set up an altar for members of a Hindu sect wishing to venerate one of the manuscripts on display. James Allan, director of the Ashmolean Inter-Faith Exhibition Service, which organized the show, welcomed their visits: "The tradition [of pilgrimage] becomes alive, not just theoretical." tel: (44-1865) 278000; www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk