Dilli Darshan: Training the tourist gaze

I offer a reading of two photographs of Agrasen ki Baoli, a fourteenth-century stepwell in Delhi, India. First, a photograph by the acclaimed Raghu Rai published in a book titled Delhi: A Portrait (1983) and second, an uncredited photograph on the Delhi Tourism Website (n.d.). Both commissioned and circulated by (iterations of) the Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation (DTTDC). I contend that these photographs yield rich insights into the DTTDC’s work towards producing Tourist Delhi and towards generating tourist desire for this city. I suggest that the DTTDC’s aim with these photographs is to train the tourist’s gaze on Delhi in a way that produces a specific kind of desire for a specific version of the city.