Bringing down the last verandah

Delhi Gymkhana was a dispensation from the state to those who ran the state. But it served a function: a place for making deals quietly. The eviction order is today’s India telling yesterday’s India, your time’s up

There is a particular sound a Delhi Gymkhana evening makes. Ice meeting glass. A bearer’s soft-soled approach. A sentence beginning with “actually, between you and me” and then, somewhere beneath all this, the low continuous hum of India being managed by people who have successfully arranged never to be interrupted while managing it.

Govt has now handed this institution a notice to vacate. Twelve days. One hundred and thirteen years, and twelve days. The British, it must be said, had better manners about these things.

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