ABDUL Ghaffar sped me to the Shatabdi in his taxi. "There were two things about Lucknow," he began, dispensing with preamble, "that no other place in the world had. Gulab rabri, so purely scented, the mud cup they served it in smelt of roses even next day! And good manners. When a jamadar plying his broom did adaab to a nawab, the nawab would stoop equally in return. But now? People born in cowsheds tell us how to run our lives. They have burnt tehzeeb like cowdung for their own comfort! That's why our world has stopped." After I paid and turned away, he called out: "You've left your water bottle behind."
