A Xanadu in new New Delhi

Like Kubla Khan who decreed a pleasure dome in Xanadu, Narendra Modi is decreeing a power dome in Delhi—a brand new capital complex inspired, in all probability, by ancient Indian architecture. Coleridge’s Xanadu was in an opium-induced daydream; Modi’s will be in optimum-spaced Delhi—a steel-and-concrete capital.

- R. PRASANNAN

Let me get you into the picture. We have this Sir Edwin Lutyens-built Rashtrapati Bhavan atop the Raisina Hill, with North Block and South Block which house the prime minister’s office and the home, finance, defence and foreign ministries standing in attendance. Grand, stately, majestic, and imperial with an imposing equilibrium.

Down the hill, on both sides of the Boat Club lawns, we have these pairs of buildings—Rail Bhavan-Vayu Bhavan, Krishi Bhavan-Udyog Bhavan, Shastri Bhavan-Nirman Bhavan and so on, which house myriad ministries and offices. They, too, add to the equilibrium of Lutyens’ grand plan, much like the salabhanjikas who stood on the sides of Vikramaditya’s throne steps.

The problem is that these buildings, built by the central public works department during our post-Independence penury, are as much of eyesores as they would have been if those salabhanjikas had been vandalised by an iconoclastic Tamerlane. They look more like gargoyles than salabhanjikas.