Last Sunday I woke up early and went to old Delhi to eat nihari in a little restaurant in Ballimaran, not far from Gali Qasim Jan, the street in which Mirza Ghalib’s old home dies slowly of neglect. Eating succulent nihari that cooks all night in its own juices and is served with fresh spices and thick bread is one of the pleasures I remember from my growing years in Delhi, but last week I went for reasons beyond nostalgia and gastronomy.

I went to see if the India I grew up in still exists or if it has become a place in which you only see Muslims at the movies. The reason for this exercise was an annoying article by our latest celebrity historian, Ramachandra Guha, which appeared in The New York Times on August 15. What better moment to rubbish India in a foreign newspaper than the day on which we celebrate our independence from foreign rule.

Guha, who says he grew up in Delhi, as I did, claims that he could not count a single Muslim among his close friends. He wrote: “The novelist Mukul Kesavan, a contemporary, has written that in his school in Delhi he never came across a Muslim name: ‘The only place you were sure of meeting Muslims was in the movies.’ Some of the finest actors, singers, composers and directors in Bombay’s film industry were Muslims. But in law, medicine, business and the upper echelons of public service, Hindus dominated.”

... contd.