Southasian urban suspicion
With its distinctly different Rajpath (Royal Street) and Janpath (People's Street) maintaining their distance, New Delhi still retains its original features of being an imperial outpost. The constructs of the British architect Edwin Lutyens may have begun to crumble and make way for high-rises and underground parking, but pretentiousness remains the very soul of the Indian capital. Legend has it that today's New Delhi sits on the site of seven older settlements. But it lacks continuity, an attribute necessary for any city to acquire character. The story is similar almost everywhere in Southasia, with the possible exceptions of Kathmandu and Kabul, cities that have maintained their primacy throughout history.
There is little connection between Pataliputra of yore and today's Patna. Benaras had lost its prestige by the time of the Mughals, and Lucknow ceased to be the Paris of the East after its long seizure during the Sepoy Mutiny. Remember Vijayanagar, Tanjore, Prayag or Ujjain? Their skeletons exist, but they no longer matter in today's world. Cities that continue to expand have much shorter histories. Bombay grew out of a fishing village, Calcutta emerged from a scratch in the ground, and the oldest history claimed by Madras barely goes beyond three centuries. Bangalore was considered a boondocks until the British decided to adopt it as a cantonment site.