Within the pantheon of Roman Gods and Goddesses, there lived a minor God named Janus. The Romans depicted Janus with two faces looking in opposite directions. As the god of doorways and thresholds, Janus symbolized both sides of every passage. He was also the god of beginnings and endings. Looking forward, he signified the promise of what’s to come, while looking backward, he signified what has passed. Though he is no longer worshipped, his presence still lingers in our language: January, the month that marks the end of the old year and the start of the new, still bears his name.
In each of us, Janus reflects two of our most fundamental impulses: the desire to look forward to the future and the urge to look back at the past. Some of us are drawn to what lies ahead, while others find comfort in remembering what has been.
Just as individuals do, entire cultures also lean one way or the other. Some seem to root themselves in memory, drawn to the past, while others orient themselves toward the future, reaching for what is yet to come.
Parisian culture, for one, strongly emphasizes its past. Two years ago, I traveled to Paris for the first time, marking my first visit to Europe. I spent my days gazing at impressionist lily pads in an old train station and admiring bronze sculptures in a decadent garden. I marveled at ancient Gothic cathedrals and marble statues, some with their heads severed. Almost everything I saw seemed to pay homage to what had come before. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that Paris, beautiful as ever, stood as a city stuck in time, reminiscing over its past.
Even the city, with its low-rise buildings and lack of skyscrapers, seemed built to resist the influences of modernity. When I learned from Parisians that the city’s only skyscraper, the Tour Montparnasse, was widely regarded as the ugliest building in Paris, it became clear that modernity was not just avoided but actively rejected, both by the city and its people, in favor of an older, more traditional aesthetic.
Conversely, when I arrived in Delhi, I was greeted by very different scenes: industrial cranes and scaffolding dotted the landscape. Heavy machinery and piles of gravel lined the roadsides. As I drove through Delhi’s satellite city, Gurgaon, I asked my friend when the skyline was built. He told me, “In the past 10 to 20 years… before that, most of the area was underdeveloped farmland.”
The immense change and dynamism reflected in Delhi’s cityscape is matched by its residents. Looking out on the roads, the bustling masses always seem to be in motion, carrying produce in their carts or rushing across the street to buy from the wallahs on the corner. Every morning, I see thousands of workers walking to their posts with a spring in their step, hopeful for the day that lies ahead. Here, everyone seems to be on the move, focused on what is to come. It is scarcely possible to find someone standing still.
With its people looking firmly ahead of them, Delhi sets its sights on the future rather than the past. Between Janus’s two faces, Delhi adopts the gaze that looks ahead.
I do not find this surprising. Part of Delhi’s willingness to look forward stems from its disillusionment with the recent past. The fall of the Mughal empire, the establishment of the British Raj, the struggle for independence, and the onset of partition were violent power struggles that shook the subcontinent to its core. It was an era of deep strife and dissatisfaction—an era in which young Indians like my grandfather, who grew up in Madras Presidency, had to live under constant surveillance and harassment by British soldiers. Perhaps it is because the recent past was so tumultuous that so many Delhiites today choose to look forward and leave the perils of the past behind them. And perhaps Parisians choose to reminisce about the past because that was when their empire was at its peak, with their cultural influence spanning the farthest.
Of course, to cast Delhi as looking only ahead and Paris as gazing only back would be to oversimplify both cities. There are countless instances of Delhiites seeking to preserve the past and carry it into the present. Delhi, for example, is an incredibly religious city, with worshippers of many time-honored faiths, as reflected by the gurudwaras, temples, and masjids scattered throughout the city. Every day, millions of residents engage in prayer, weaving these ancient traditions into the fabric of their daily lives.
Similarly, Paris is not completely opposed to modernity and change. On the outskirts of the city, one can find remarkable levels of creativity and innovation that challenge tradition-bound Parisian culture. On my final night in Paris, I ate at a restaurant that offered a novel blend of French and North African cuisine, harmonizing the two into a single, inventive meal. I am confident that other forms of experimentation and innovation are flourishing throughout the city, though these may be the exception, not the rule.
On the whole, it is Paris that draws my attention to the past, while Delhi inspires me to look toward the future. Like Janus, these cities seem to embody two ways of seeing the world: Paris, with its reverence for the past, invites reflection on what has come before, while Delhi, shaped by a tumultuous history, pushes forward, encouraging us all to look ahead.
