Delhi: The City That Survives By Fogetting

Delhi has been a seat of power for longer than most cities have existed. It has been built, destroyed, abandoned, and rebuilt more times than its own historians agree on. Every dynasty that came to rule India came first to Delhi — and almost none of them survived it.

This is the story of how a city learns to forget in order to survive.

Episode 1 of What We Walk Over: India's Buried Cities traces Delhi across centuries — from the iron pillar of Chandragupta II to the last Mughal emperor writing poetry in a prison cell in Rangoon. It is a story about what a city carries, what it buries, and what it cannot bring itself to let go.

What We Walk Over: India's Buried Cities is a narrative history podcast about the cities of India that have been built over, erased, diminished, forgotten, or quietly written out of the version of the past we chose to remember. Each episode is a city. Each city belongs to one of five archetypes. Delhi is a palimpsest — a city where every era built on top of the last, and none of it fully disappeared. Written and narrated by Dev Surolia.

Original music, sound design, mixing and editing: Ambar Bhartiya.

Show Logo: Sudip Bhattacharya.