preservation

On Sunday I finally went on the 5th walk in a series of heritage walks throughout the city that I've been taking. They offer each walk once a month and this one was the one I've wanted to do the most, as it is closest to my house, but I kept having scheduling issues.
Anyway, finally I had a weekend that worked, hooray! The walk was through the Mehrauli archaeological park and it was really interesting. It is this huge area that just goes on forever; we covered less than 1/4 over 2 hours. What I found really interesting and somewhat sad, was how poorly preserved so much of it is and how little people are aware of it.
My rickshaw driver didn't know what is was and even with a map I almost missed the entrance as there was no marking even though it is a really significant historical sight.
While in the park we saw relatively few people; maybe 50 in addition to our group (although I must admit that it was early). And quite a few of the sights were in a state of disrepair with graffiti. According to our guide there just aren't the resources to keep up the preservation; her organization had done a lot about 5 years ago but then moved on to other areas in and around Delhi.
It is sad, but a reality in so many countries like India I suppose. There are so many people that are so poor, between that and terror threats, and pollution, etc., etc., the last thing the government is worried about is preservation of sights.
I guess it is moments like that when it really hits me just how vast the difference is between India and the western world and how far they still have to go. We have the luxury of putting resources towards preservation of history and sights whereas here the focus is on survival and trying to keep pace with the world.
I just hope that the recent terror activities don't deter tourists because it is really through tourism funds that these sights will be preserved.
Luckily every walk I have done has had more and more people on them (the first had 5, this one had about 25); the organization that plans these walks is making an effort to get the word out so more Delhi-ites will be aware of what the city has to offer.
On a completely different note:
I saw an elephant on Sunday. I had seen one in my first weekend here in Delhi but you almost never see them in Delhi so I was beginning to think that I had imagined the first one in a jet-lagged achy footed haze; but then on Sunday as we're zipping down the road there was an elephant swishing along (he was being ridden by someone, he wasn't a wild elephant); my rickshaw driver thought it was pretty cool too. So, I'm not crazy; well, at least I'm not imagining elephants.