Suddenly the procession came to a halt. A lot of people started yelling at the top of their voices. I am sure I heard a loud bang but I was not sure if it was a cracker or a bomb. The four elephants in the front row stopped some yards away from us. I saw men running away from Chandni Chowk into the side-streets. Those on the roof-tops had disappeared. Some men running down the street on the Clock Tower side were shouting: ‘Bhago, bhago (run, run).’ Other words I caught were ‘bomb’ and ‘maar dala (killed).’ Had somebody thrown a bomb at the Viceroy’s elephant and killed the Viceroy, his Vicereine and their attendants?

We were stunned. We did not know which way to turn. If the Viceroy had been killed we knew what would follow. Just a few yards on the left side of the gurdwara separated by a police station was the Sunehri Masjid. It was from this mosque that Nadir Shah had ordered the massacre of the citizens of Delhi because someone had fired on him. The sahibs were slow to anger but once their temper was roused their wrath could be terrible. After suppressing the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, they had hanged hundreds of people in this very Chandni Chowk and blown up a whole bazaar with its shops and mansions in front of the Royal Mosque. We shut the gates of the gurdwara and collected round the Granth Sahib to listen to recitations of the Guru’s words. The city awaited its fate.

We waited till it was dark before we slipped out of the gurdwara. There were no tongas or ekkas available and we had to walk home in the dark through deserted streets. My father kept muttering, Wah Guru! Wah Guru! all the way.

I could not get much sleep that night. What would happen if the Viceroy had been killed? Would they still go ahead with building a new Delhi? After this experience would the English ever trust any Indian?

It was from the morning paper that we learnt the truth of what had transpired. A bomb had been hurled from the roof of a bank building. It had killed the Viceroy’s umbrella-bearer, and grievously wounded the Viceroy who had been immediately taken to hospital by car. The Viceroy’s personal servant had also been injured. The Vicereine and another servant on the same elephant were unhurt. The ceremony at the Red Fort had taken place nonetheless with Mr Fleetwood Wilson reading the proclamation on behalf of the Viceroy.

Lord Hardinge who till then had thought of little else but the new city lost interest in the project. It took him a long time to recover from his injuries. He became impatient with Lutyens’s grandiose plans and began to turn to Herbert Baker for advice. The Vicereine who did her best to keep up her husband’s enthusiasm took Lutyens’s side. Then she fell ill and had to be taken back to England for a major operation. She died soon after surgery. By then the papers were full of rumours of a war breaking out in Europe. Who would think of building a city while fighting a war? If England lost there would be no New Delhi.