City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi
by William Dalrymple
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Book Summary Information
Author: William DalrympleEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-03-25
ISBN: 0142001007
Number of pages: 350
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi
Book Review: Excellent portrait of a fascinating city
Summary: 5 Stars
_City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi_ by William Dalrymple is an excellent portrait of a fascinating city. I have to admit, having read a few travel essay books on India that the image I had of the city was of a fairly uninteresting place, a "city of gray bureaucracy" as the author put it. Dalrymple showed me just how wrong I was in this intimate depiction of Delhi, past and present.
One of the first things the reader learns in this book is that there is more than one Delhi. The two main Delhis are Mughal Old Delhi and Punjabi New Delhi, each keeping largely to itself, each "absolutely certain of its superiority over the other." Old Delhi has been inhabited for thousands of years, its Urdu-speaking elite (both Hindu and Muslim) having lived in the city for many centuries, the city an ancient one of sophistication and culture, though also a city in severe decline, with many of its once magnificent palaces, gardens, tombs, and mosques, once examples of the "silky refinement" of Mughal architecture now crumbling into ruin, decaying into "something approaching seediness." Many of its citizens are among the last to practice trades dating back to Mughal times, and a large number of them live in exile in Pakistan. In contrast, New Delhi is a growing, booming, bustling city of hard-working nouveau-riche entrepreneurs, largely comprised of people whose roots only go back to the catastrophic days of Partition in 1947, when hundreds of thousands of Punjabi Sikh and Hindu refugees poured into the city. Though I did not get a sense of great conflict between the two Delhis, there was some tension; there are those Old Delhi elites who regard the Punjabi colonizers as unrefined, unsophisticated, vulgar, and even boorish, while there are Punjabis who despise the residents of Old Delhi as "effeminate, slothful, and degenerate."
There are however really more than just two Delhis; some count seven Delhis (the current New Delhi being the eighth), while others count 15, 20, or even more. Even New Delhi is he wrote in 1989 not that new; it is a "groaning necropolis, a "graveyard of dynasties." Many different centuries exist side by side, making it a city "disjointed in time," a city of nouveau-riche Punjabi immigrants of the latter part of the 20th century co-existing with Anglo-Indians from the days of the Raj and fakirs, sadhus, and even eunuchs (which really surprised me) that would have been at home during the days of the Mughals.
Dalrymple takes the reader to the many amazing sights and experiences of all the Delhis. He visited a Sufi enclave, positively medieval in character, home to mystic dervishes sought by all manner of pilgrims for enlightenment, for prayer, for salvation from djinns, which many - even Sikhs and Hindus - believed in. Dalrymple spent time and effort trying to penetrate the enigmatic society of eunuchs; no longer guarding Mughal harems, they have a complex and hidden society, complete with territories, India and Pakistan-wide council of eunuchs, and a Central School of Dance, where eunuchs learn folk, traditional, and modern dance, performing at households that have had weddings or births (informed of such by their network of informants), their presence seen as both a blessing and a curse. He visited festival celebrations such as Dusshera, the Hindu feast celebrating the victory of Lord Ram over the demon Ravanna, Dilwali, the Hindu festival of lights, and al-vida, "the goodbye," the last Friday of the fast of Ramadan, a major event in the Old City. He journeyed to see pigeon fanciers (a passion of the long gone Mughal court), partridge fights (another Mughal tradition), old Anglo-Indian families (who came to suffer the worst racial prejudice of both Indians and British, most having emigrated to America, Canada, and Australia, the few that remained were as he wrote "the optimistic, the old, or the nostalgic", staying on despite some remaining Indian resentment as well as increasing poverty), and a hakim clinic (hakims being Muslim doctors practicing ancient Greek and Unani medicine, the latter of which was derived from heretical Nestorian Christians, fleeing to Sassanid Persia to avoid Byzantine Empire persecution, passing on their knowledge to the Persians, who in turn passed those skills to early Arab conquerors of Islam, who brought their skills to Central Asia and then eventually to India when refugees fleeing Genghis Khan arrived in the subcontinent in the 13th century).
In addition to a tour of places in Delhi, as one might gather the author covered a great deal of history, interweaving it in a skillful manner as it related to his various travels and encounters. Much of the history covered Mughal times though he also covered at length the Raj, Partition, and even as far back as the incredibly ancient times of the great Hindu epic _Mahabharata_, an ancient epic much like the Greek _Iliad_, which like the _Iliad_ has some basis in fact, though it became a story that imposed much later and more elaborate material culture (among others things) from the 4th century AD on what were events that originally transpired in the 9th century BC.
The author provided detailed profiles of many residents of Delhi, past and present. Mr. Balvinder Singh, was a notable figure, an "individualist who believes in the importance of asserting himself," a taxi driver who befriended William and his wife Olivia, a hilarious character to read about at times. Also important were Mr. and Mrs. Puri, the Sikh couple that was their landlords and who also became friends, and Dr. Yunus Jaffrey, a gentle scholar of classic Persian, an expert on Mughal times. Notable past figures included the murderous tyrant Sultan Tughluk, the 14th century Moroccan adventurer Ibn Battuta, the highly artistic but brutally cold-blooded Shah Jehan (he constructed the Taj Mahal), William Fraser (an early 19th century Scot who styled himself a local ruler; Dalrymple compared him to Mr. Kurtz from _Heart of Darkness_), and Sir Edwin Lutyens (a fabulous architect who was regrettably quite racist).
Summary of City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi
Sparkling with irrepressible wit, City of Djinns peels back the layers of Delhi's centuries-old history, revealing an extraordinary array of characters along the way-from eunuchs to descendants of great Moguls. With refreshingly open-minded curiosity, William Dalrymple explores the seven "dead" cities of Delhi as well as the eighth city?today's Delhi. Underlying his quest is the legend of the djinns, fire-formed spirits that are said to assure the city's Phoenix-like regeneration no matter how many times it is destroyed. Entertaining, fascinating, and informative, City of Djinns is an irresistible blend of research and adventure.
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