City Improbable: Writings On Delhi
- Publisher : Penguin Random House
- Publishing year : October 2010
- Binding : Paperback
- ISBN : 9780143415329
- Imprint : Penguin Books
- Age Group : Adult
- Language : English
Delhi is the twin of pure paradise, a prototype of the heavenly throne on an earthlyscroll Amir Khusrau. A city of cont ...
Delhi is the twin of pure paradise, a prototype of the heavenly throne on an earthlyscroll Amir Khusrau.
A city of contradictions, where ancient traditions and modern aspirations jostle for space, Delhi has often been compared to a phoenix rising from the ashes. Its three thousand years of eventful history have witnessed the rise and fall of several empires, a process that continues today.
City Improbable brings together writings by immigrants, residents, refugees, travellers and invaders who have engaged with India's capital over different epochs. Babur shares his earliest experience of the city and Amir Khusrau praises the fine lads of Delhi; Ibn Battuta and Niccolao Manucci record the glories and follies of prominent rulers; William Dalrymple and Khushwant Singh provide intriguing accounts of the threshold period that saw the coming of the British and the waning of the Mughals. Poets and storytellers Meer Taqi Meer, Ghalib, Yashpal, Kamleshwar, Ruskin Bond narrate their versions of the city. Contemporary Delhi is featured in a variety of vignettes: the bureaucracy, the Emergency, the anti-Sikh violence, lovers and joggers in Lodi Gardens, the city's Sufi legacy as well as its changing cuisine.
One of India’s most acknowledged column-writer and novelist, Khushwant Singh was the founder-editor of Yojana and had served as the editor of Hindustan Times, the National Herald and the Illustrated Weekly of India. He was also awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974, but returned it as a protest against the atrocities of the Indian Army on the Golden Temple in 1984.
