Spending trillions of rupees, the government has only jazzed up the facade of Delhi (Game for the Show, April 12). Scratch below the surface, and its real character stares you in the face. As cruel, insensitive and stony as it always was, it has uprooted thousands of poor from its shanty towns and dumped them in bastis like Savada Ghevara while the upwardly mobile get their jazzy malls, smooth-as-Hema Malini’s-cheek roads, looped flyovers and the gleaming metro service.
Rakesh Agarwal, Dehradun
I live both in Spain and in India. I wish our ministers travel in Spain to see how cities are maintained.
Satyanshu, Madrid
I recently travelled by the Delhi metro and really liked the experience. I will concede that that is money well spent. However, I don’t understand what the people will get or what kind of prestige India will get just by spending such a lot of money on organising the Commonwealth Games? You just have to visit the outskirts of Delhi or even some of the slums in our bigger cities to see the condition in which most of our people live. What prestige?
Ramesh Raghuvanshi, Pune
What is William Dalrymple whining about? A city may have ancient monuments, but it also must have modern amenities and infrastructure. Let Dalrymple write about the glories of Delhi’s past in some other context.
Varun Shekhar, Toronto
