Miller possesses an intense curiosity; he has an infallible eye for life’s diversities, for all the marvellous and sublime moments that illuminate people’s lives. This is a generous, original, humorous portrait of a great city; one which unerringly locates the humanity beneath the mundane, the unsung and the unfamiliar.
Read more from Penguin
DELHI METROPOLITAN: THE MAKING OF AN UNLIKELY CITY
Ranjana Sengupta
Independence, four million refugees from Pakistan and the overwhelming presence of visible and invisible power that flows from New Delhi being the capital have transformed it from the unruffled imperial town it once was to the fearsome metropolis it is today.
And yet, says Ranjana Sengupta, this largely unloved city deserves to be loved. Delhi is home to the most diverse population of any city in the country. The unceasing influx of migrants has unleashed new urban architectures of opulence and deprivation. Different groups have set up their own, different universes, and these manage to coexist, not unhappily. And somewhere between the futurist Gurgaon skyline and the proliferating slums, alongside the march of the Metro and the refurbishment of Khan Market, lie Delhi’s unsung sagas—the memories, the passions and the unspoken expectation that the city will change lives.
Delhi Metropolitan tracks the changes from the time ‘going to CP’ was almost the only leisure activity for the middle class, it looks at the subtle reinventions of government colonies and the shining new suburbs, and inspects the footprints of ‘Punjabification’. Have all these actually managed to colonize this extravagant, undefinable and unlikely city? In a work of immense detail, at once informed and entertaining, Ranjana Sengupta proffers an answer.
Read more in Penguin
CITY OF DJINNS: A YEAR IN DELHI
William Dalrymple
A scintillating memoir of a year spent in Delhi by one of the best writers at work today. Alive with the mayhem of the present and sparkling with William Dalrymple’s irrepressible wit, City of Djinns is a fascinating portrait of a city. Watched over and protected by the mischievous, invisible djinns, Delhi has, through their good offices, been saved from destruction many times over the centuries. With an extraordinary array of characters, from elusive eunuchs to the last remnants of the Raj, Dalrymple’s book is a unique and dazzling feat of research. Over the course of a year he comes to know the bewildering city intimately, and brilliantly conveys its magical nature, peeling back successive layers of history, and interlacing innumerable stories from Delhi’s past and present.
Read more in Penguin
DELHI: A NOVEL
Khushwant Singh
‘I return to Delhi as I return to my mistress Bhagmati when I have had my fill of whoring in foreign lands …’
Thus begins Khushwant Singh’s vast, erotic, irreverent magnum opus on the city of Delhi. The principal narrator of the saga, which extends over six hundred years, is a bawdy, ageing reprobate who loves Delhi as much as he does the hijda whore Bhagmati. Travelling through time, space and history to ‘discover’ his beloved city, the narrator meets poets and princes, saints and sultans, temptresses and traitors, eand mperors and eunuchs who have shaped and endowed Delhi with its very special mystique. And as we accompany the narrator on his epic journey we find the city of emperors transformed and immortalized in our minds for ever.
Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint copyright material:
Curtis Brown on behalf of William Dalrymple for the extract from City of Djinns by William Dalrymple, published by Flamingo;
A.P. Watt Ltd on behalf of Jan Morris for the extract from Among the Cities, published by Penguin Books;
Ralph Russell and Khurshidul Islam for the extract from Ghalib: Life and Letters: 1797-1869, published by George Allen and Unwin;
Delhi Diary for ‘The Building of New Delhi’ by Sheela Bajaj;
Lok Bharti Prakashan and Mrs Yashpal for the extract from Jhootha Sach, published by Lok Bharti Prakashan;
Rukun Advani for ‘Number Seven, Civil Lines’ from Sheila Dhar’s Raga’n Josh: Stories from a Musical Life, published by Permanent Black;
Sunil Sharma for translating the lines from Amir Khusrau’s poems used in the blurb.
While every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain permission, this has not been possible in all cases; any omissions brought to our attention will be remedied in future editions.
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Block D, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in Viking by Penguin Books India 2001
Published in Penguin Books 2004
This revised edition published by Penguin Books India 2010
Anthology copyright © Penguin Books India 2001, 2004, 2010
The copyright for the individual pieces vests with the authors or their estates
Acknowledgements is an extension of the copyright page
Cover design by Bena Sareen
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-01-4341-532-9
This digital edition published in 2013.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-854-2
For sale in the Indian Subcontinent and Singapore only
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this book.
City Improbable- Writings on Delhi Page 37