City Improbable- Writings on Delhi

by Khuswant Singh

  Perceval Landon (1868–1927) was an English writer and journalist. A lifelong friend Rudyard Kipling, he is now best remembered for his classic and much reprinted ghost story Thurnley Abbey. Apart from being a novelist, he wrote travel books on India and Nepal, and also worked as special correspondent for papers like the Daily Mail and the Times.

  Karoki Lewis is a London-based professional photographer whose work has appeared in a number of photographic books on India. Among the books he has co-authored with his father Charles Lewis are Delhi’s Historic Villages, a new edition of which is forthcoming from Penguin, and Mehrauli: A View from the Qutb.

  Saadat Hasan Manto (1912–55) was the leading Urdu short-story writer of the twentieth century. He was born in Samrala in the Ludhiana district of Punjab. He worked for All India Radio during the Second World War and was a successful screenwriter in Bombay before moving to Pakistan after Partition. During his controversial two-decade career, Manto published twenty-two collections of stories, seven collections of radio plays, three collections of essays and a novel.

  Niccolao Manucci (1639–1717) was an Italian writer and traveller who worked as a soldier and quack doctor in the Mughal court. Manucci is famous for his work Storia do Mogor, an account of Mughal life in the seventeenth century.

  Vaishali Mathur is a Delhi-based editor and translator. Apart from translating Jarnail Singh’s I Accuse …: The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984 into English, she has also translated two books from The Chronicles of Narnia series into Hindi.

  Meer Taqi Meer (1723–1810), whose original name was Muhammad Taqi, was the leading Urdu poet of the eighteenth century. A devoted Sufi, his invaluable verses helped transform the Urdu language itself. He remains arguably the foremost name in Urdu poetry.

  Sam Miller had his initial brush with Delhi in the early 1990s when he was posted there as the BBC World Service TV and radio correspondent. On his return to the UK in 1993 he became the presenter and editor of the BBC’s current affairs programme South Asia Report, after which he was appointed the head of the Urdu service and subsequently Managing Editor, South Asia. In 2002 he was posted back to Delhi, where he has remained ever since. He is the author of Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity.

  Jan Morris is a Welsh author, historian and travel writer. A gender re-assigned woman, she was published under her former name, James Morris, until the 1970s. She is particularly famous for her Pax Brittania trilogy, a history of the British Empire. She has also written Last Letters from Hav in addition to books on Wales, Venice, Oxford, Manhattan and six volumes of travel essays.

  Jaanu Nagar trained as a teacher for a year after finishing his graduation from Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh. After coming to Delhi in 2003, he lived in Nangla Maanchi until 2006 when it was demolished. He now lives in Sawda village, Delhi. He is a co-writer of Trickster City: Writings from the Belly of the Metropolis.

  Chaman Nahal, born in 1927, is a renowned writer and scholar. He formerly taught at Delhi University and Cambridge University. He is the author of nine novels, including Azadi, Into Another Dawn and The Triumph of the Tricolour.

  Rukmini Bhaya Nair is Professor of Linguistics and English at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Her research areas are in cognitive studies and literary theory. She has written several books, including Technobrat: Culture in a Cybernetic Classroom, The Ayodhya Cantos and Yellow Hibiscus.

  Vijay Nambisan is a journalist, poet and author. His books include Bihar Is in the Eye of the Beholder, Language as an Ethic and Two Measures of Bhakti.

  Renuka Narayan is the Arts and Culture Editor at the Indian Express, where she also writes a weekly column on religion. She has co-authored A Passion for Dance with Yamini Krishnamurthy and Maximize Your Life with Pavan K. Varma, and has compiled and edited The Book of Prayer.

  Hasan Nizami, also known as Sadruddin Muhammad bin Hasan Nizami, was an Indo-Persian historian who lived in the thirteenth century. By order of Sultan Qutbuddin Aibak, he wrote Taj-ul-Maasir, a contemporary account that chronicles the history of the Delhi Sultanate. Very little is known about Hasan Nizami himself, and the only available references come from his own writings.

  Manjula Padmanabhan is a Delhi-based author, playwright and artist. Her comic strips have appeared previously in the Sunday Observer and the Pioneer. Her books include Hot Death, Cold Soup; Getting There; This Is Suki!; Kleptomania and Escape. Her fifth play, Harvest, won the 1997 Onassis Award for Theatre. She has also illustrated many children’s books.

  Mrinal Pande is a journalist and TV personality. She has written novels in both Hindi and English, including Devi, My Own Witness and Daughter’s Daughter. She has now been appointed chairperson of Prasar Bharati, the apex body of Indian Broadcast Media.

  Nayantara Pothen grew up in Kolkata, Singapore and Sydney, Australia. In 2007 she was awarded her PhD in History from the University of Sydney. Her essay ‘New Delhi at War’ is based on a chapter from her forthcoming book on New Delhi society in the 1930s and 1940s. Her deep interest in the country of her birth is rivalled only by that of her Indophilic husband. She lives in Sydney.

  Babli Rai lives in LNJP colony. She is a co-writer of Trickster City: Writings from the Belly of the Metropolis. Currently, she is finishing a long text about her conversations with an old, transgendered woman in LNJP colony, who has travelled all over India and is highly respected in the neighbourhood.

  Suraj Rai is a writer and a self-trained Linux system administrator. He is a co-writer of Trickster City: Writings from the Belly of the Metropolis. Born and brought up in LNJP colony, Delhi, he is currently in the US on a scholarship to pursue higher education in computing from the Common College Initiative Programme of the United States Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, 2010.

  Gordon C. Roadarmel (1932–72) was perhaps the first American scholar seriously to concern himself with contemporary Hindi literature and criticism. Born and raised in India, he went on to study and teach in the USA. He was the first to translate Premchand’s novel Godaan in 1968. His other noted translations include To Each His Stranger by Agyeya, and the collection of short stories A Death in Delhi: Modern Hindi Stories.

  Anita Roy has worked as an editor in Delhi since 1996. She is a regular columnist and reviewer for magazines and newspapers in India and the UK.

  Ralph Russell (1918–2008) was a British scholar and teacher of Urdu literature. He co-edited and co-translated Ghalib: Life and Letters: 179–186 with Khurshidul Islam.

  Pran Sabharwal was a veteran journalist. He was one of the first Asians to work with a major American newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, in the 1970s. He covered several national events, including the India–China War. A socialist since his student days, he was also president of the Delhi University Students’ Union.

  Samsam-ud-Daula was an eighteenth-century historian. He is best known for having written Maathir-ul-Umara, a biographical dictionary of illustrious men who lived in Hindustan and the Deccan.

  Ranjana Sengupta is an editor and is also the author of Delhi Metropolitan: The Making of an Unlikely City.

  Shveta Sarda is a Delhi-based writer and translator, and has been working in Sarai-CSDS since 2001. Her translations have appeared in the Sarai Readers. She has recently translated Trickster City: Writings from the Belly of the Metropolis, a collection of composite narratives about Delhi previously published as Bahurupiya Sheher.

  Bulbul Sharma is a Delhi-based painter, short-story writer and novelist. Her books include My Sainted Aunts, Banana Flower Dreams, The Anger of Aubergines and The Book of Devi. She writes a column for the Asian Age and works as an art teacher for children with special needs.

  Sunil Sharma teaches Persian and Indian literatures at Boston University. He is the author of two books on Indo-Persian poetry and has translated and edited I n the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amir Khusrau with Paul Losensky.

  Jarnail Singh has worked as special correspondent with Dainik Jagran, Delhi, for ten years, covering the fields of Sikh politics and defence. He has wr
itten extensively on the Sikh massacre of 1984 and its aftermath, including the recently published I Accuse …: The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984.

  Khushwant Singh is one of India’s best-known writers and columnists. He has been the editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, the National Herald and the Hindustan Times for several years. He is also the author of several books, including the novels Train to Pakistan, I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, Delhi: A Novel and The Company of Women; the classic two-volume History of the Sikhs; as well as numerous translations and non-fiction books on Delhi, nature and current affairs.

  Renuka Singh teaches in JNU and has written several books on gender studies and Buddhism.

  Sunny Singh has worked as a journalist, teacher, and as a management executive for multinationals in Mexico, Chile and South Africa. She gave up the corporate life for writing and after three books, and various writing projects in progress, still believes it was the best choice. In 2005 she relocated to London, where she teaches creative writing at the London Metropolitan University. Her books include Nani’s Book of Suicides, With Krishna’s Eyes and Single in the City.

  Timur-i-Lang (1336–1405), also known as Tamerlane in English, was a fourteenth-century conqueror of much of western and central Asia. A controversial figure in his lifetime, he was the founder of the Timurid Empire as well as the great great grandfather of Babur. He captured Delhi in 1398. The accounts of his invasions have been recorded in his memoirs, collectively known as Malfuzat-i-Timuri or Tuzk-i-Timuri.

  Pavan K. Varma is a writer and diplomat. A member of the Indian Foreign Service, he has served in Moscow, New York, London and Cyprus. He is at present India’s Ambassador in Bhutan. His books include Ghalib: The Man, The Times; Krishna: The Playful Divine; The Great Indian Middle Class; Being Indian: Why the 21st Century Will Be India’s and Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity, all published by Penguin.

  Vyasa is a central and revered figure in the majority of Hindu traditions. Regarded as the author of the Mahabharata, in which he also plays a principal role, he is also credited as the scribe of the Vedas and the supplementary texts such as the Puranas.

  Yashpal (1903–76) began to write while serving a life sentence for his participation as a comrade of Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad in the armed struggle for India’s independence. After his release, he went on to author several novels and collections of short stories, including Jhootha Sach, considered one of the finest Hindi novels ever written, and Meri Teri Uski Baat, which won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1976.

  Read more in Penguin

  FINDING DELHI: LOSS AND RENEWAL IN THE MEGACITY

  Edited by Bharati Chaturvedi

  Delhi is a magnet—for migrant workers, students, highly qualified professionals, ambitious tycoons, politicians. In the national imagination, it is a city of wide roads, flyovers, the Metro, markets and multiple opportunities.

  But all this ‘progress’ and the quest to become a world-class city have also had an unsettling effect. People have been pushed out of public spaces, lakhs of slum dwellers have been banished and the Yamuna has been overwhelmed by sewage and industrial effluents.

  Finding Delhi brings together many voices, offering a kaleidoscopic view of Delhi. It has essays on subjects such as the demolition of slums, the factories that deal with the city’s waste, the campaigns for clean air and BRT corridors, and the difficulties faced by women. Also included are first-hand accounts that reveal the travails of being a dhobi, a garbage collector, a fruit vendor and a maid in the megacity.

  This book looks at Delhi from myriad angles and tells many untold stories.

  Read more in Penguin

  CELEBRATING DELHI

  Edited by Mala Dayal

  Who are the real makers of a city?

  Delhi, located at the crossroads of history, has been occupied, abandoned and rebuilt over the centuries. It has been the capital of the Pandavas, the Rajputs, Central Asian dynasties, the Mughals and the British, and is best described as a melting pot of these vastly varying traditions and customs.

  A galaxy of experts come together to offer fresh perspectives on the capital city—Khushwant Singh, Upinder Singh, William Dalrymple, Sunil Kumar, Pradip Krishen, Narayani Gupta, Vidya Rao, Sohail Hashmi, Dunu Roy, Priti Narain, Ravi Dayal. Originally part of the Sir Sobha Singh Memorial Lecture series organized by The Attic in collaboration with the India International Centre and the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, this updated selection explores Delhi’s living syncretic heritage.

  The essays illuminate unknown and fascinating aspects of the city’s history. We learn, for instance, how Sir Sobha Singh transplanted Delhi’s two foundation stones by bullock-cart in the stealth of the night from Kingsway Camp to Raisina Hill. In a different departure, archival records point to the fundamental ecological miscalculation of the British choice of trees to line the avenues of Imperial New Delhi. Place names, part of the cultural fabric of a city, unearth a vanishing history of Delhi, while the contrasting history of Sufi shrines draws attention to the spiritual masters, the pirs, and their search for truth.

  The letters and public proclamations issued from the Mughal court in the Delhi uprising of 1857 reveal an open-mindedness that is inspiring. These were emphatically religious, yet inclusive of both Hindus and Muslims. In our time a different take on the reality of refugee and resettlement colonies shows the blindness of the city’s civic planners, and reveals who was making and who was breaking the city in the twentieth century. The many peoples who made Delhi their home through the centuries have all contributed to the creation and development of a sumptuous cuisine noted for its rich variety.

  Celebrating Delhi takes you on a journey, both varied and unexpected.

  Read more in Penguin

  BESIEGED: VOICES FROM DELHI 1857

  Translated and compiled by Mahmood Farooqui

  When Delhi lay under siege for five harrowing months in the summer of 1857, the people of the city described the events as ghadar: a time of turbulence. Resources within the besieged city fell dangerously low and locals found the rebelling sepoys’ presence and the increased levies insufferable. Nonetheless, an extraordinary effort was launched by the government of Bahadur Shah Zafar to fight the British. Thousands of labourers and tonnes of materials were mobilized, funds were gathered, the police monitored food prices and a functioning bureaucracy was vigilantly maintained—right until the walled city’s fall. Then, as Delhi was transformed by the victorious British, these everyday sacrifices and the efforts of thousands of people to save their country were lost forever.

  In this groundbreaking work, Mahmood Farooqui presents the first extensive translations into English of the Mutiny Papers—documents dating from Delhi’s 1857 siege, originally written in Persian and Shikastah Urdu. The translations include such fascinating pieces as the constitution of the Court of Mutineers, letters from soldiers threatening to leave Delhi if they were not paid their salaries, complaints to the police about unruly soldiers, and reports of troublesome courtesans, spies, faqirs, doctors, volunteers and harassed policemen. Shifting focus away from the conventional understanding of the events of 1857, these translations return ordinary and anonymous men and women back into the history of 1857.

  Besieged offers a view of how the rebel government of Delhi organized the essential requirements of war—food and labour, soldiers’ salaries, arms and ammunition—but more than that, this deeply evocative book reveals the hopes, beliefs and failures of a people who lived through the tragic end of an era.

  Read more in Penguin

  TRICKSTER CITY:

  WRITINGS FROM THE BELLY OF THE METROPOLIS

  Azra Tabassum, Jaanu Nagar, Lakhmi Chand Kohli, Rakesh Khairalia, Yashoda Singh, Kiran Verma, Suraj Rai, Neelofar, Kulwinder Kaur, Shamsher Ali, Babli Rai, Ankur Kumar, Dilip Kumar, Love Anand, Nasreen, Rabiya Quraishy, Sunita Nishad, Saifuddin, Arish Qureshi and Tripan Kumar

  Translated by Shveta Sarda

&nb
sp; A groundbreaking collection of writings about the South Asian city

  —Rana Dasgupta

  I f you put your ear to this book you will be able to hear people breathing, if you touch it, you will be able to feel their fragile, but furious pulse. If you read this book, you will be greatly rewarded.

  —Arundhati Roy

  Trickster City is an extraordinary composite of writings on Delhi by a group of young people who have, over several years, sustained among themselves and with others around them, a relationship of conversing about the city.

  This collection chronicles the loss of home and livelihood through urban eviction; encounters with the agencies of the state; love stories gone awry; the fragility of relationships; and the sustained effort to build life in anticipation of beauty and pleasure.

  The writers draw from experiences, events and biographies, part fictive, part documentary, to inscribe an image of the city that is rarely available. There is a yearning in their writings for the expression of the poetic and allegorical alongside the harshness of everyday existence.

  Trickster City is an aphoristic and playful meander in search of a new language that expresses the profound uncertainties and delicately realised joys of urban life.

  Read more in Penguin

  DELHI: ADVENTURES IN A MEGACITY

  Sam Miller

  This is an extraordinary portrait of one of the world’s largest cities. Sam Miller sets out to discover the real Delhi, a city he describes as being ‘India’s dreamtown—and its purgatory.’ He treads the city streets, making his way through Delhi and its suburbs, visiting its less celebrated destinations—Nehru Place, Rohini, Ghaziabad and Gurgaon—that most writers ignore. Miller’s quest is the here and now, the unexpected, the ignored and the eccentric. All the obvious ports of call–the ancient monuments, the imperial buildings and the celebrities of modern Delhi—make only passing appearances. Through his encounters with Delhi’s people—from a professor of astrophysics to a crematorium attendant, from ragpickers to members of the Police Brass Band—Miller creates a richly entertaining portrait of what Delhi means to its residents, and of what the city is becoming. Miller is, like so many of the people he meets, a migrant in one of the world’s fastest growing megapolises and the Delhi he depicts is one whose future concerns us all.