One of the one percent in 13 million.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Countless Delhi roads are named after notable individuals. Few of us Delhiwale stop to consider what these people did to merit this form of immortality on our navigation apps.

One such road runs alongside the French Embassy in Chanakyapuri. It is named not after Napolean, nor Proust, but after a French intellectual arguably less familiar to most of us Indians. Yet André Malraux looms large in France’s national imagination. A novelist and statesman, he ranks among the most influential French figures of the twentieth century. His ashes lie in the Panthéon in Paris, the immortal resting place of some of France’s most revered giants, among them Voltaire and Victor Hugo.

This week, his granddaughter Céline Malraux is in Delhi on her first visit to the country. The trip forms part of a series of commemorations marking André Malraux’s 50th death anniversary.

India held a special place in André Malraux’s life, Céline tells this reporter during a chance encounter this muggy evening at a city museum. Her slender face framed by light brown hair worn loose over shoulders, the visitor from France responds with good humour that no one in her family bears a particularly close facial resemblance to the illustrious grand-père. Céline says that André Malraux visited India six times, developed a friendship with Jawaharlal Nehru, and, as France’s first Minister of Cultural Affairs, helped organise the earliest exhibition of Indian art in Paris. He was especially inspired by our ancient temples, and souvenirs of our Buddhist heritage.

Meanwhile, here in Delhi, Céline is moving through a hectic schedule. Earlier in the day, she says, she spoke at a gathering of the city’s Francophiles about her grandfather’s connection with India. A writer herself, she never knew André Malraux personally. He died before she was born. Raised in the intellectual and artistic hubbub of Paris’s Left Bank and now living in the French Caribbean, she inherited her grandfather through books and family stories. “For me, he is almost a personal monument,” she says. Inadvertently highlighting the burden carried by descendants of celebrated figures, she believes her grandfather’s influence has faded somewhat and demands renewed attention. Indeed, she is in India to further this very cause.

By now, with night well underway, Céline abruptly decides to visit the Delhi road that carries her grandfather’s name. She hasn’t been there before.

At this hour, the site is quiet and feels utterly isolated. The exteriors of the French Embassy building is showing no signs of activity. The road is empty except for a stray dog. André Malraux’s granddaughter wordlessly walks up to the pavement sign reading “André Malraux Marg.” The precious moment unfolding on the deserted site carries added significance. One purpose of Céline’s visit to Delhi was to formally launch a series of monthly conversations at the French Ambassador’s residence; the programme is named the Malraux Marg Talks.

[This is the 631st portrait of Mission Delhi project]