Exploding canine numbers, monkey raids, and wandering herds are turning the Taj City into a daily gauntlet for pedestrians and commuters.

What does a building need to survive for centuries? Good materials? Clever engineering? Regular maintenance? Respect for nature? Apparently, it needs all these things, except perhaps a municipal certificate.

On one side stands Yogi Adityanath’s strong government, tough law-and-order image and gleaming expressways. On the other are unemployed youngsters, exam-paper leaks and a strange new slogan roaring across social media: “We are cockroaches!"

Do you remember that dark night in March 2020? The screams of ambulances cut through the silence. Deserted streets, closed airports, locked schools, and queues of people waiting anxiously outside hospitals. A cough became a cause for fear; a sneeze became a disaster. People were confined to their own homes. Families were separated. Doctors and nurses were pushed to the breaking point. Many people could not even touch their loved ones for the last time.

The biggest story in India is not what television debates shout about every night. It is what they carefully avoid.

“Jayati Jayati Bharata-Mata!” What a simple, sweet and deeply Indian invocation. Yet, after Independence, when the young nation was searching for symbols of its new identity, why did this beautiful Sanskrit song never make it to the national stage?