City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

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Considering that Lutyens managed to fuse Eastern and Western aesthetics more successfully than any other artist since the anonymous sculptors of Gandhara (who produced their Indo-Hellenic Buddhas in the wake of Alexander the Great), his dislike of Indian art and architecture is particularly surprising: ‘Moghul architecture is cumbrous ill-constructed building,’ he writes in one letter. ‘It is essentially the building style of children [and] very tiresome to the Western intelligence.’ At one stage, after visiting Agra, he is grudgingly forced to admit that ‘some of the work is lovely’, but he attributes these qualities to an (imaginary) Italian influence.

City of Djinns — Book Review - Medium City of Djinns — Book Review - Medium

Even the most innocuous of our neighbours, we discovered, had extraordinary tales of 1947: chartered accountants could tell tales of single-handedly fighting off baying mobs; men from grey government ministries would emerge as the heroes of bloody street battles. The City of Djinns is one of the first books by William Dalrymple which doesn't revolve around the history of India, rather it represents various anecdotes of his time in India and explores the history of India with the help of various characters he meets, like the Puri family, the driver, the customs officer, and British survivors of the Raj, [1] 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. In the Old City men set up small roadside stalls around big earthenware pots containing 'jal jeera', a dark, spicy, green liquid which burns the mouth but cools the body.... The author adds another dimension to these stories and makes them much more interesting by introducing some modern day aspect, say an existing but long forgotten ruin or a living person who is directly related. We get to meet Dr Jaffrey who serves as an expert on Purani Dilli, the Haxby sisters who tell us about the unfortunate Anglo Indians, and a visit to an Office of the Railways Board reveals a tykhana built for William Fraser.

Moreover the city - so I soon discovered - possessed a bottomless seam of stories: tales receding far beyond history, deep into the cavernous chambers of myth and legend. The night we moved in, we spent our first hours dusting and cleaning before sinking, exhausted, into bed at around 2 a.m. The following morning we were woken at 7.30 sharp by ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. Half asleep, I shuffled to the door to find Ladoo, Mr Puri’s bearer, waiting outside. He was holding a tray. On the tray were two glasses of milky Indian chai. Subjects studied included Muslim jurisprudence and Quranic studies, and probably astronomy and medicine too. D then embarks on an archeological survey into ancient Delhi of lore - to the Mahabharatha and beyond, right to the Vedic origins of the civilization on the banks of the Yamuna - that is interesting by itself but adds precious little to the illumination of present Delhi. But it still shows how continuing traditions lie at the core of such cities. After all, there are only a handful of truly epic and truly modern cities. The descendants of the once mighty Mughals, now impoverished; Anglo-Indians and Britishers trying to fit into Indian society after the fall of the Raj; practitioners of traditional Unani medicine from Central Asia; sadhus; caligraphers, and eunuchs all make an appearance in the text.

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi: William Dalrymple

All the different ages of man were represented in the people of the city. Different millennia co-existed side by side. Minds set in different ages walked the same pavements, drank the same water, returned to the same dust. My first experience of reading a William Dalrymple was with White Mughals when I was in class nine. Until then, although I had always enjoyed reading History as part of the school curriculum, I hadn’t cared to venture into it any further outside of my textbooks. White Mughals turned out to be sad, breathtaking, challenging (I was a kid) and extremely memorable. I finally started to look for books which fell outside the broader fiction genre.It's a sad occasion. Husband and wife have never met one another and do not do so until towards the end of the wedding ceremony. She in in her early forties. Her father was unable to afford the costs of a wedding when she was younger. The groom is quite a bit younger than the bride. Both look very unhappy. The doorbell to their apartment played both 'Land of Hope and Glory, and the Indian national anthem. 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.’