Bytes from India by Randa Breuer

  Recipe for a successful heritage walk guide:  “Passion, some knowledge, and storytelling skills”  Advice from Sohail Hashmi to Dushyant Meet Dushyant Singh: Corporate coach, heritage enthusiast, cultural curator, lover of history, art, and all things sacred by vocation, electronics engineer with an MBA by training. In 2017, after fifteen years of working in different positions in the corporate world, Dushyant decided to change course and  transform himself into an independent entrepreneur,  pursuing his passions as a corporate coach, heritage walk leader, and educator. I interviewed Dushyant in order to follow his evolution into his current career. I first met Dushyant in July 2022, when my husband and I joined an Intach Heritage walk he had led to Kashmere Gate, and its surrounding area. July 2022 was when India was still recovering from Covid, the number of foreign tourists was almost nonexistent, and the few foreigners around were expats working in Delhi, a...

I have been living in Delhi for over two years now and have visited most of the main monuments; I have joined heritage walking tours as often as I could.  Yet one important and bustling area eluded me until last weekend. It is a neighborhood that is thronged with multitudes, but not often visited by tourists and expats, despite being a stone’s throw from important Delhi landmarks and a UNESCO heritage site.   Our Sunday walking group led by our professional guide, Mr. Dushyant Singh, met in front of the Nizamuddin Police station. I had no idea what to expect other than a mosque and a stepwell. I knew cars could not go into that area, as many taxi drivers I had asked had refused to take me there in the past.  I knew it was an ethnic muslim area. Beyond that, I was not prepared for the experience. Upon leaving the main road to enter the Nizamuddin enclave, we were immediately transported into a different reality;  a warren of narrow winding streets leading to a la...