‘A for Prayagraj’: This biography of Allahabad is a modern story of an old city

Neelesh Narayan looked like a schoolboy. He was thin and compact and was dressed as if for the first day of class. (Under the high ceilings of Coffee House, this impression of a schoolboy was heightened.) At twenty-five, his touring company Holy Waters had successfully wedged Allahabad into the global industry of “colonial tourism”.

With options ranging from the “Rudyard Kipling trail” to the “Chronicles of Alfred Park”, Holy Waters invited you to rejoice in the “European attitude… the classic case of English flair” that was once typical of Allahabad. “My customers come from all over the Commonwealth,” Neelesh said. “The locals aren’t interested.”

Before all of that, though, how does a twenty-five- year-old end up on a “Rudyard Kipling trail”?

Born and raised in the industrial hub of Naini – “that side of the rivers” – Neelesh is a self-professed ’90s child. Paradoxically, as the country had opened to the world, Neelesh’s universe had only gotten smaller. Though he lived in a city of a million people, he really grew up on the handful of streets between his home and his school. The isolation, perhaps even a feeling of anonymity, only became more acute in the intervening years. It riddled Neelesh with an…

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