Graveyard of Empire

Next Nigel took us to a place that was clearly dear to him: the location where King George and Queen Mary, on their visit to India in 1911, decreed that the capitol should be moved from Calcutta to Delhi and that "New Delhi" should be built. For environmental reasons (its a monsoon flood plain) that location was abandoned and New Delhi was actually built on the high-ground south of Old Delhi.

In the modern day, the site of the annoucement is a very run-down barren expanse of land. Imagine a fair ground or a drive-in movie theater that has been out of service for a decade. In the middle is a walled garden meant to store the British statues from around India, sort of a memorial to the occupation. In practice few statues were sent and the garden is in disrepair, so a visitor gets the distinct sense that this is the graveyard of the empire. I've never seen a spot for which Ozymandias felt more appropriate.

What I found fascinating is that George's announcement here came at the height of the British empire, when the King felt secure enough in his rule to make the only visit to India that an English monarch ever made. He had no notion that a mere three years later, in 1914, WWI would start the decline of the British empire. Nor that his reign would yet span the time when Britons went from thinking it impossible to ever leave India, to their thinking that departure was inevitable.

And yes, that's me posing like a super-hero on one of the pedestals.