A mongoose-magnetHIDDEN behind the fashion boutiques of Mahatma Gandhi Marg in Lucknow is an architectural gem. The mausoleum of Amjad Ali Shah, a king of Oudh, was built in the 1840s in Indo-Islamic style. Though large, it is delicate, with fine flowers in red plaster over the archways. But Mohammad Haider, a trustee of the mausoleum, mostly spies threats to the monument. He stalks the courtyard, snapping pictures of parked cars and ticking off a building labourer for dumping a large pile of rubble. “Illegal,” he says. “All illegal.”
India has an enormous number of beautiful old buildings and an instinct for preserving them, which it inherited partly from its colonial rulers. Unfortunately, the country also has a corrosive climate, a growing crush of people and cars in its cities and a bureaucracy that is sadly not up to the task of preservation. Its heritage is crumbling. But in Lucknow, a northern city blessed with many historic buildings, that is starting to change.
In the early 20th century India’s British rulers drew up a list of monuments worth protecting, which has hardly changed over the years....Continue reading
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