India, April 24 -- Per Dante's Inferno, each of the Hell's nine concentric circles in the epic poem denotes a distinct tier of sin and damnation. Similarly, in Delhi's Connaught Place (CP), each of the colonial-era market's four concentric circles maintains a distinct tier of sights and sounds. The initial two circles were tracked over the previous weeks. The first runs along CP's core: the Central Park. The second is a white colonnade crammed with showrooms and restaurants (To most Delhiwale, this is the circle the mind's eye envisages when thinking of CP).

Now, to the strangest part of CP: the Middle Circle. It contains a half of CP's quintessential essence, the half that gives the shopping district its perennially dishevelled appearan...