India, Oct. 5 -- An anecdote that stayed with me about Delhi was from my father-in-law, who briefly served in R&AW. It was one of those stories common across Delhi in the late 1940s and 1950s, when the city was organising the wilderness of south Delhi into residential areas and people were deciding where to set roots. His father was in the Intelligence Bureau and for years had lived in Tilak Marg near India Gate. Honoured with the Padma Shri for his service, he was also invited to live in West End Colony. When asked, he shrugged and said, "I go to hunt rabbits there, why would I go to settle there, in the wild."

This area of West End Colony is not far from Shanti Path and the airport, or from Chanakyapuri, where politicians, diplomats an...