Travel writer Sam Miller recounts sense of circularity,warmth of Dilliwallahs in heart of megacity

Connaught Place was both venue and subject of Miller’s talk. Prior to that,Miller had spent a fog-covered morning taking a group of Delhi enthusiasts on a short walk around CP.

The talk itself alternated between Miller reading excerpts from his book and a slide presentation of the many photographs he has collected on his wanderings. Some of the visuals yielded knowing gasps from those in the audience who had read Adventures in a Megacity,delighted at the tit bits of insider information.

One delightful photograph was of a blurry Jantar Mantar,the iconic “stairway to heaven”. Miller asked his audience to focus on the two barely visible lines on the ground. These are railway tracks,he said,built for material to travel from Old Delhi to the still-being-built New Delhi. Other visuals — an aerial view of CP being built,or a 19th Century map of Delhi —made Miller’s point clear to everyone,that: “in just 80 years,Connaught Place moved from being the south-most point of the city to now,virtually the northern tip”.

Miller credited his methodology — walking — for the unique glimpses of Delhi his book provides.

“By walking,I avoided the rich,the powerful”,he said. He decried the fact that there were few public and semi-public spaces in India where gender or class didn’t play a part. “CP needs to be more accessible,” he said.

He was,however,also positive: “A man who behaves badly on a bus behaves very differently on the Metro. Women are much more comfortable there,” he pointed out.

Sam Miller’s next book is “a conventional travel guide to India… but this one is not about shopping,it’s a historical and culture guide”,he said.