One way to rank the big cities is through its breed of street dogs, probably. When the high-breed varieties squat on a street, it is reasonable to accept a certain degree of sophistication and give the place some bonus points.

That was at least what I thought when I saw those high-breed Alsatians occupying a busy street in New Delhi. I was passing through the same street, many times a day, going and coming, to and fro, like a street dog — one would say, exploring the city and searching for ‘my’ food, in the scorching heat of the day. For the few days days I remained there, I was no different to them, except that they could doze off on the road anytime they wanted, while I was a visitor who had to move on relentlessly. Moreover, my New Delhi mission was not turning out as planned.

The only other time I had gone to New Delhi was some 20 years ago. I don’t recall any street dog back then. But the city’s look has changed drastically since. It had all the ingredients of a modern city — skyscrapers, mega structures, multi-lane broad roadways, underground metros, traffic, peak-hour rushes and jams — everything! The railway station itself was a mock-up of a poorly managed Western version — for all the litter, spitting and unruly trespassers. This was despite the phenomenal progress made by Lalu’s Railways — as some locals put it — in the last few years.

There’s no denying the fact that India has progressed a lot in the last two decades. The flourishing metropolis and the modern cities are all apt examples of its booming economy. But while New Delhiites apparently boast their high-end lifestyle, the poor and the slum-dwellers are being pushed out to another aptly named place, Old Delhi.

Couldn’t it be that, along with poor folks, the low-breed mongrels too were pushed out to the conventional “Old Delhi” in the process of transmigration, with the high-breed Alsatians left behind to wallow in the luxuries of New Delhi?

Or it might just be that when the British quit India, they left their high pedigree dogs to roam the streets of the capital. Casual visitors, though, might be left wondering if these

dogs were the hallmark of a truly modern city that New Delhi has grown into.