Srinagar, Sept. 24 -- By Haider Abbas

History looks different when seen through the doors of a modern medical university.

Anyone entering Eras Medical College in Lucknow today would find little of the world associated with Dr Aziz, the central figure in E.M. Forster's A Passage to India, published in 1924.

Aziz was attached to a glorious past while living under an insular and prejudiced British imperial order.

A century later, Eras presents a different picture of the city. Technology, scientific research, medicine and education have become part of daily life on its campus.

The setting gives this story its particular force.

Lucknow was once the seat of a Persianised elite that ruled Awadh from at least 1722 until 1857. The last king ...