New Delhi, Oct. 24 -- Located on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, the estuary where the River Forth meets the North Sea, Edinburgh is, in my extremely biased opinion, one of the world's most beautiful cities.

Writer Alexander McCall Smith described the Scottish capital best: "a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas... a city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again". What sets Edinburgh apart from a lot of beautiful old cities is that its history isn't sealed behind glass; it's still being lived in, nowhere more than in its pubs.

A pub has always been more than somewhere to drink. Like Parisian cafes or Chinese tea houses, it worked as a community space for centuries, somewhere people went for comp...