City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

Product Information

I cannot recommend this book highly enough....and I cannot recommend it to enough people. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't love it. Having your own original opinions was clearly a major flaw in a mirza and, just to be on the safe side, the Mirza Nama offers a few acceptable opinions for the young gentleman to learn by heart and adopt as his own. Among flowers and trees he should admire the narcissus, the violet and the orange..... A gentleman 'should not make too much use of tobacco' but 'should recognise the Fort in Agra as unequalled in the whole world (and)...must think of Isfahan as the best town in Persia.'

City of Djinns by William Dalrymple - Ebook | Scribd City of Djinns by William Dalrymple - Ebook | Scribd

But, as Mrs Puri said, you had to keep up appearances. Mr Singh also had strong views about appearances. At one point , when the Dalyrmples have visitors staying, she counts how often the loo is flushed during the night. One night there are seven flushes, and she cuts off the water in protest. No, no,’ said Mr Singh. ‘Still you are not catching me. You Britishers are not sporting.’ He twirled the waxed curlicues of his moustache. ‘All men should be sporting a moustache, because all ladies are liking too much.’ Mrs Puri had achieved all this through a combination of hard work and good old-fashioned thrift. In the heat of summer she rarely put on the air conditioning. In winter she allowed herself the electric fire for only an hour a day. She recycled the newspapers we threw out; and returning from parties late at night we could see her still sitting up, silhouetted against the window, knitting sweaters for export. ‘Sleep is silver,’ she would say in explanation, ‘but money is gold.’And I like the nostalgic or lyrical bits, like this conversation with an author born in Delhi but living in Pakistan: The doorbell to their apartment played both 'Land of Hope and Glory, and the Indian national anthem.

City of Djinns : A Year in Delhi - Softcover - AbeBooks

During our high school and college days the Women’s College was out of bounds for males except occasionally and on quite a few occasions when the college was hosting Inter Collegiate Debates we could enter he college and wander about a bit. These debates were usually held in Durbar Hall to which Dalrymple refers in his book.

Success!

If we extend this and add the next great disaster, modern Delhi would appear to take shape, even though D does this in reverse, it is easy for the reader to do the mental jugglery. Five years after I first lived in Delhi I returned, now newly married. Olivia and I arrived in September. We found a small top-floor flat near the Sufi village of Nizamuddin and there set up home.

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple

With little possibility of much fulfilment in this world, they look to the next; they are forever visiting temples and mosques...and going on pilgrimages to Hindu and Muslim shrines." In 2016, the situation was different as my sister and I entered the college without any hassles. The system had become more liberal and a number of young men on motor-bikes entered the premises to drop the women students riding pillion. When we went to Durbar Hall all that faced us were steps leading up to a blank wall. The building had deteriorated so much that one could no longer enter the Durbar Hall it was a big disappointment an unexpected let down. The civilization I belong to – the civilization of Delhi – came into being through the mingling of two different cultures, Hindu and Muslim. That civilization flourished for one thousand years undisturbed until certain people came along and denied that that great mingling had taken place.’

But having come this far, D could not stop. He had to dig deeper. How could a history of Delhi be complete without talking of Mahabharata?? The Quest to understand delhi convinces D again and again that he has found the key only to be shown each time that the inner doors keep stretching into the distance. A sort of chinese doll palace entrance, with entrances nested inside the other. Mr Lal was meanwhile studying the application of the weeping Punjabi lady. He read it twice and, frowning, initialled it at the top right-hand corner: ‘See Mr Sharma for countersignature. Room 407.’

City of Djinns by William Dalrymple: 9780142001004

So, how does all this come together? Is D a travel writer or a new breed altogether? I wonder how the readers at the time greeted this book that makes not much of an effort towards being a travel chronicle and is quite blatantly an exercise in curiosity. It had been a bad monsoon. Normally in Delhi, September is a month of almost equatorial fertility and the land seems refreshed and newly-washed. But in the year of our arrival, after a parching summer, the rains had lasted for only three weeks. As a result dust was everywhere and the city’s trees and flowers all looked as if they had been lightly sprinkled with talcum powder. Things the book does well deserve initial mention. Obviously, a lot of research went into the book, both academic and experiential, and both of them are laudable and it's always a tougher task for someone from the outside (culturally, even if not geographically) when compared to those who grow hearing about most of the things the text here uncovers. Secondly, it is, after all, well written. WD does quite a good job with his explanations and dramatic moments and an even better, albeit perhaps just a bit parodic, job of representing dialogue and highlighting the unique way English has been appropriated here and frequently misused for all global purposes while yet managing to do the job locally. Finally, he managed to, at that point in time, bear a whole year here all that time ago, when it was most possibly much more difficult than it'd be now.Authoritarian regimes tend to leave the most solid souvenirs; art has a strange way of thriving under autocracy. Only the vanity of an Empire - an Empire emancipated from democratic constraints, totally self-confident in its own judgement and still, despite everything, assured of its own superiority - could have produced Lutyens’s Delhi. The book followed his established style of historical digressions, tied in with contemporary events and a multitude of anecdotes. He says that the influence of the British has almost completely disappeared, and the Indians regard their stay in India much as the British regard the stay of the Romans in Britain. Everyone has servants,’ said Mrs Puri. ‘You must have servants too. This is what these people are for.’ It was said that not one private Lutyens bungalow would survive undemolished by the turn of the century.