When we signed up for a heritage walk in Old Delhi to see the havelis, or old mansions from the days of Shah Jahan’s empire, we had just arrived from Jaipur, where, as with much of Rajasthan, restoration has become both popular and extremely lucrative, with ancient family palaces being turned into stunning hotels run by the Taj Group (Rambagh Palace Hotel in Jaipur is a glorious example), and havelis across the state lovingly conserved and transformed into boutique hotels with even more of a caché, demand running inverse to the limited supply of these distinctive, intimate properties that often have more character than branded hotel chains.

While conservation remains a priority in Rajasthan, Old Delhi’s Mughal heritage is on the brink of extinction. With these once renowned, storied havelis falling into ruin, unkempt and inhabited by numerous families living at the edge of squalor, sharing multiple electricity outlets amongst warren like rooms that have been reduced to their skeletal remains, often with the owner-families knowingly allowing the disintegration of these properties either out of apathy and/or the combined knowledge that once rendered irreparable, the real estate can be used for another, modern building.

Walking through the streets of Old Delhi, within the broken down walls of what was once Shahjahanbad, the city of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan who founded the city in 1648 AD, it is hard to identify the signs of that culturally glorious era without a guide who really knows the area well and is versed in its complex history. So much has grown around the old mosques and elegant, expansive mansions and water filled courtyards since the heydays of the sophisticated Muslim aristocracy and courtiers.

With our guide Yasir Anwar—a historian, archaeologist and passionate conservationist—we walked through the crammed streets of Old Delhi on a relatively less crowded Sunday; an activity that required a great deal of mental and physical acuity and nimbleness to spot and jump out of the way of rickshaws and madcap scooters that can very easily do one grievous injury. Among the bazaars, narrow roads, and crush of veiled Muslim women and men, there would be an high arched doorway through which we would enter into the haveli that once belonged to Razia Begum, daughter of Nawab Qamar Ud-din Khan, a minister in the court of Shah Jahan, fallen into ruin, or the abode of the beloved 19th Century Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib, whose home had become a shop before the government bought a portion of it back and restored its glorious high ceilings, revealing the elegant, thin clay bricks called “Lakhori” that were originally used to build these sprawling homes.

Once we were chased out of a haveli by a fierce dog whose bark was luckily worse than its bite, and at another haveli, which we entered through a very small, very low door in an immense iron gate, we were surrounded by watchful, potentially malicious monkeys and an even more alert groundskeeper who wouldn’t allow photos; the property had been bought by people who intended to tear it down and they were suspicious of the likes of us who were interested in the heritage and conservation aspect.

Walking around Old Delhi amidst these once glorious ruins, I was reminded of our very own Durbar Squares in Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, and Patan, and the immense challenges that lie ahead of us in terms of integrating these living medieval cities with an urban landscape now at its zenith. The Newars designed sophisticated water systems for their citizens during the Malla era, but these century old systems are no longer sustainable for the now burgeoning populations that still queue up at the Manga Hiti next to Patan Museum for their daily water ration.

All over South Asia today, including in Old Delhi and in Nepal, there is an immense challenge to integrate growing urban populations with priceless heritage that is disappearing on a daily basis. Along with that responsibility comes the other, perhaps even more urgent, need to give the people who live in these areas proper sewage systems, access to water and electricity, and of course, provide them with access to education, among many other essential human rights.

There are no real blueprints to follow for knotty problems such as these, but a government’s will to conserve, educate, and provide goes a long way in helping things along. Private citizens can contribute by buying and restoring property, advocating, and educating themselves on what is at stake, and lobbying local and national governments to make a move.

Kathmandu valley, like Shahjahanbad, was once a city of long avenues, balanced buildings punctuated by gushing water sources and lofty temples and public spaces, today, those remainders of our history are practically invisible to the visitors’ eye, but we, as the inhabitants, cannot allow them to disappear from our lives even as we try to conserve and provide space to the generations ahead.