I assure you, it will not merely mean looking at a few beautiful buildings, it is much more than that. Let me explain.
You have all heard of the rich literatures of the East, Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and Chinese but where has the average European time or opportunity to learn one or more of these languages to enjoy them?- The same as we have no time to learn Greek, Latin, French or German. Architecture and painting make up this loss to a considerable extent. As you go from building to building chronologically you see for yourself how the architects and their patrons conceived of beauty in their life and how they tried to transform into stone and morter through arches, domes and pillars, how one artist failed to solve a difficult aesthetic problem, and how after several attempts a more gifted artist finds the way out, how rebels suddenly appear in the field and violently reject everything of the past, and then, as it were, comes a fresh renaissance and finally masters who assimilate every achievement of the past and make a new anthology of the most beautiful pieces of architecture.
It is precisely as if you are following from the birth of a literature till its developed state.
And what strikes me as most important is the fact that you are not merely reading books, you are not merely seeing buildings but you are coming into the closest touch with the minds and hearts of a people and then, you come to the grand discovery, how alike they are, all over the world. You, who are accustomed to a certain type of architecture in your country, will realize how, inspite of the difference in styles and execution, the aesthetic ideals are the same and how the artists all over the world have tried to come nearer to the supreme realisation of Beauty which is Truth.
I have been speaking of Delhi, a city which I love not only because of its architecture but for many more things.
For example I love the lazy, comfortable way our bazars are run. No one is in a hurry, the philosophy of our bazar people appears to be, why be in a hurry when life is so short, take it easy. If you are a stranger in shopkeeper may try to save some of your precious time but if you happen to be one of the regulars Allah protect you! He will ask you about the health of every single individual of your family, there is no question of your cutting him short-offer you tea which the boy will take ages to serve. In the meantime three customers have come and gone and you are nowhere near your purchases. At long last he produces the perfumes you want to buy for your sons wedding. He warps up a little fine cotton on a tiny piece of wood and soaks it in the attar- scent- and says with a sigh that our last Emperor Bahadur Shah could not live for a day without it. Now you have not got the purse of the Emperor, so you get worried as to what the price will be like. He sighs again and produces an second variety in the same process and reminds you that this was the favorite of Her Majesty, the Empress. Alas, he adds, who are the people now that care for such refined delights, you are one of the very few–, the market is flooded with cheap scents from all over the world. May Allah hasten my death, he prays so that I may disappear before the aristocratic attars vanish from this world.
Meanwhile, as far as prices are concerned, our aristocrat at business table does not appear to be a great believer of vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity, At the rate he is making profit, he need not die for another thousand years. Even if all attars disappear from the world he should be able to live happily on the profits he has already made.
It is the nose which enjoys the attar, no wonder you pay through your nose.
That reminds me, the heavy smell of oven-baked chickens had entered the same nose through all the powerful age-old attars. What, you have not heard of oven-baked chickens, commonly known as tandori-murghi in Delhi? Why, in that case you must positively undertake a pilgrimage to India. I am told, some of your great men went round that world to prove that it was round, the discovery of an oven-baked chicken is most emphatically a million times more laudable task. You will go down in history as the first European who brought to England the delicate chicken a la oriental, chicken des Hindus, poulet au Delhi nimporte quoi, according to your knowledge of French or absence of it.
