PRIDE IN PRAYAGRAJ

Allahabad might have changed its name, but a new book shows that the iconoclastic spirit of its youth remains resolute

- Alok Rai

A FOR PRAYAGRAJ

A Short Biography of Allahabad

by Udbhav Agarwal ALEPH

I might have said that this is a queer book, except that it would be an unforgivable pun. Well, today's paper reported a high court judge in Indore opining that in India unmarried girls, regardless of their religion, (do not] indulge in carnal activities with boys just for the fun of it. Thanks to this book, I've got news for the learned judge.

Nostalgia is the default mode in which Allahabad is typically remembered. This nostalgia works at several levels. At the most accessible level, there is the nostalgia of the non-resident who, having been a student here before clambering into the civil service, remembers, in effect, his lost, receding youth. Receding not only as an effect of time passing but also because, like a lost civilization, it is progressively buried under the debris of corruption and compromise.