Did he say Great Wall of China? Now that’s new. Pardon my ignorance, but what on earth does Shah Jehan’s palace have in common with the Chinese monument? Several Google searches later, I was convinced there was none. If anything, I ended up a wee bit wiser — while the Red Fort was built in the 17th century, the Great Wall of China was built three centuries before Christ.

So probably the Australian got it wrong. Or so I thought till I met a certain Mr and Mrs Thomson from Britain, who have been in Delhi for a week now. “Lal Qila can be compared to the Tower of London. It’s quite the same thing, you know. They are both military monuments built to protect the capital from invaders,” Thomson said of the monument that still treasures Britain’s Crown Jewels.

Now I see what the Australian was talking about. Or do I?

An American tourist I met at Qutub Minar looked straight up at the tower and said, “I have been traveling around the world but this monument is so similar to the historic sanctuary of Machu Picchu in Peru,” she said. “It’s so creative, and the engineers should have been so bright to be able to do that.” Another Google search and I am confused. Creative alright, but similar?

A German teenager once compared the Qutub Minar to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. Now, I either don’t know my country or that’s just a bad French Connection.