In The Times of India of today I came across this fairly famous dictum by Baudrillard: “Holidays are in no sense an alternative to the congestion and bustle of cities and work. Quite the contrary. People look to escape into an intensification of the conditions of ordinary life, into a deliberate aggravation of those conditions... to well above average levels of stress, pressure, and monotony... No one is interested in overcoming alienation; the point is to plunge into it to the point of ecstasy. That is what holidays are for.”

This might be true for all holidays, but for holidays in New Delhi Baudrillard’s dictum is even more apt.