Why it looks like this

Amritsar means 'pool of nectar' — the city is named for the water tank at the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs. The walled old city grew around that pool in rough rings, its bazaar lanes curling toward the temple gates from all sides.

The British later added a circular road where the city wall stood, a grid-like cantonment outside it, and the railway — so the map reads from the centre out: temple, maze, ring, grid.