India, March 30 -- Many years ago, sitting in a charming little cafe perched like a contented cat atop Malabar Hill, my wife and I made one of the wisest decisions of our lives. We decided to get married. The cafe, quite naturally, took full credit for this life-altering moment. Every year thereafter, we returned faithfully to the same spot, ordered the same food, and looked at each other as if we had just invented romance.

And now, the cafe is gone.

Obliterated with the efficiency of a bureaucrat stamping a file. In its place, a municipal structure has emerged.

So there I stood the other day, looking at a pile of rubble, trying to remember where exactly I had proposed. Was it near that broken brick or slightly to the left of that ceme...