Ugly is official

Monuments to museums, India does a generally poor, sometimes shoddy, job of preserving things of beauty This is peak tourist season. But the way in which Mubarak Manzil was razed even as UP’s archaeological department issued it a protection notice and officials from Lucknow visited it to start preservation efforts, is particularly ugly. It is a fact that few countries can offer the bouquet of tourist delights India can, from tiger safaris and living root bridges and 43 Unesco World Heritage Sites to palace hotels, spiritual wellsprings, and a dazzling variety of glorious cuisines. Those who post a photo of themselves from Kolkata’s Victoria Memorial or Ajmer’s Ana Sagar Lake have to first undertake untold contortions, to make sure the cobwebs and the garbage, respectively, don’t steal the show. Back to Agra, another reason its story resonates is because there is a feeling that if India’s top tourist destination, barring Ayodhya now, fixes its problems, the rest can also hope for the same.