'There Isn't An Identifiable Ethos'

Different pockets of the city have completely different cultures. I'm a bit surprised by the paucity of fiction, because Delhi can be so full of interesting stories for people to write about.

Ranjit Lal

Updated on: 15 January 2008 12:00 am

AGuide to the Birds of the Delhi Region

Treesof Delhi

Nature Watch

I admire Shama Mitra Chenoy’s Shahjahanabad:A City of Delhi, 1638-1857, which is a study of life in Shahjahanabad overtwo centuries. Her thesis is that life in the Walled City was very cohesive--notlike the British made it out to be. William Dalrymple’s The Last Mughalis a fine study of life around the 1857 Mutiny, much less academic than mostother books of its kind.

I haven’t read much fiction set inDelhi, apart from Sagarika Ghose’s The Gin Drinkers and AniruddhaBahal’s Bunker 13. I’m a bit surprised by the paucity of fiction,because Delhi can be so full of interesting stories for people to write about.One problem with Delhi might be that there isn’t an identifiableethos--different pockets of the city have completely different cultures.

I wrote a book called The Life andTimes of Altu Faltu a few years ago, a take-off on Delhi society--politicalskullduggery and social alliances--where the characters were all monkeys. Buteven I have a hard time getting my hands on that book today! I’ve recentlywritten a story for older children titled The Battle for No. 19 (Puffin,2007), about a group of children trapped in a house during the anti-Sikh riotsof 1984.

Other mentions: The Millennium Bookon New Delhi, edited by B.P. Singh and Pavan Varma, which is a collection ofessays on different aspects of the city; and Delhi Between Two Empires by Narayani Gupta.

WhatI’d like to see

ADelhi that’s able to laugh at itself a bit more.

This article originally appeared in Delhi City Limits, January 2008