Our built environment (man-made surroundings such as buildings, muhalla, cities, gardens, etc.) has a power to invoke various types of emotions among human beings. These emotions could be of happiness, sorrow, fear, anger, surprise and joy. In nineteenth and twentieth century Urdu literature, writers associate nostalgic feelings with the built environment in the subcontinent. These feelings provide us with insights into the contemporary culture and human emotions due to the changing political and social realities. By focusing on three cultural centres of the subcontinent, Lucknow, Delhi and Lahore, this article proposes that nineteenth and twentieth century Urdu literature is an important tool to explain the power of buildings to invoke nostalgic feelings among humans.

Mark Hewson and Marcus Coelen, Georges Bataille, (London, Taylor & Francis, 2015)

Rob Boddice, The History of Emotions, (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2020)

Giuliana Bruno, Atlas of Emotioné Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film (London, Verso, 2002)

Andreas Reckwitz, Affective Spacesé A Praxeological Outlook, Rethinking History, (London, Taylor & Francis, 2012)

Margrit Pernau and Katherine Butler Schofield, Monsoon Feelingsé  A  History of Emotions in the Rain, (New Delhi, Niyogi, 2018)

Patrick Colm Hogan, Bradley J. Irish, and Lalita Pandit Hogan, The Routledge Companion to Literature and Emotion, (Londoné  Routledge, 2022)

Madhu Trivedi, The Making of the Awadh Culture, (Dehli Primus Books, 2010)

Binti Singh,Social Media, Cultural Activism and Placeõmaking in Contemporary Lucknow, Society and Culture in South Asia, 5, no.1, 2019

Abdulhalim  Sharar, Guzishta Lucknow, (Lahore  Sang e Meel Publications, 2006)

Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, Delhi in Historical Perspectives , (Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2020)