I haven’t written a letter of complaint to your newspaper mainly because I am dead. And I’ve been told you don’t often publish the dead. Let me introduce myself. I’m the original – OG, as your ‘youth’ say – architect of the city of New Delhi. So much so that the city is often referred to by my name, a.k.a. Lutyens’ Delhi. The word ‘bungalow’ next to my name, a.k.a. Lutyens Bungalow, is also still the ultimate status symbol of Delhi poshness. Or so I’ve heard from the deceased HNI Delhiwalas I meet here (I will not clarify heaven or hell, don’t ask).
I’ll be honest. I never set out to be the Louis Vuitton of home building for India’s elite. I just wanted functional bungalows for high ranking British officials because we were certain we would never leave. You threw us out, which was unexpected. But when and why did I become the epicenter of Punjabi socialite flex?
Anyway, my complaint is about your government deserting and rejecting my buildings. I’m not writing to say, why are you doing it? I’m writing to ask – what took you so long? And if there’s anyone you should blame for not liking Imperial New Delhi and Raj era hangovers, it is Herbert Baker, my partner and snake.
The entire time I built Parliament House – the now vacated Sansad Bhavan that was opened in 1927 as the seat of the Imperial Legislative Council then taken over by the Constituent Assembly in 1947 till 1950 – I was fighting with Baker. He stole the credit of building New Delhi from me. Honestly, your old parliament building wasn’t a great creation and wasn’t even meant to be a parliament. It was meant to house a council of Indians to give the pretense of self-rule while we actually ran everything. It was a building specifically meant to do nothing.
How you managed to fit in 540 Lok Sabha members and 250 Rajya Sabha members – and a canteen, and a library, and meeting rooms – and run a democracy from there, is a wonder of your democracy itself. I don’t know this gentleman Bimal Patel, but I believe his spanking new building is substantially larger than mine, and more geometric than round. That was my original idea! God promise. It’s just that Herbert Baker, didn’t let me do it. He thought the roundness encapsulated India’s ‘diverse fabric’. Oaf! Which brings me to my other complaint with Baker. About Rashtrapati Bhavan. First of all, he built an incline leading to what was made as the Viceroy’s House – my Mona Lisa! – which meant that the viceroy wouldn’t have a clear view of Rajpath (or whatever you now call it). There was never meant to be a hump in the middle of India’s majestic avenue!
I see Viceroy’s House now houses your rashtrapati. My whole goal was to build the grandest palace ever for a state official, and I hear that a lot of your presidents have lived there alone. Can you please request them to invite friends over? Otherwise, it is a waste of the 340 bedrooms I carefully furnished.
As far as the argument of my beautiful architecture being deposited in the dustbin of history, that was inevitable. I didn’t expect it to last. That we got away for so long is a miracle, thanks to some lovely Anglophile conservationists. Yes, as a racist Victorian person I wanted to make British Delhi beautiful, with gardens and stone, a bit of country house England, taking from the red stone of the Mughals and all that came before in the history of your great city, a mix of conquest, cultures and power.
My structures will gather dust and those that will come after, I’m sure, will find a temple under them. But I hope I am remembered fondly. When you pass India Gate or take your car around the leafy avenues of South Delhi, remember me. I drew that.
Sincerely,
Your humble servant,
Edwin L Lutyens
Address not disclosed
