Inside and outside walls.

india is covered with walls. We are staying inside the HMI compound, surrounded by a wall which on one side faces the neighbor’s wall which is topped with wire. Inside we enjoy green grass, profuse flowering plants, quiet peace, interrupted only by the five times...

Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

In his 2003 novel set in Bombay, Roberts offers his readers this description of his main character’s early obersations about the city. It is not unlike our own first day in Delhi a decade and a half later. ”The contrast between the familiar and the exceptional was...