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City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi (Paperback)

by William Dalrymple (Author) "Mrs. Puri had achieved all this through a combination of hard work and good old-fashioned thrift..." (more)
Key Phrases: salwar kameez, elephant fights, nautch girls, Shah Jehan, Red Fort, Balvinder Singh (more...)
4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Delhi has a richly layered past, and Dalrymple (In Xanadu, McKay, 1990) deftly peels away each layer to reveal how the city came to be what it is today. Djinns are spirits said to be seen only after prolonged fasting and prayer; they too are integral to understanding the city. The author, a young Scot carrying on the fine British tradition of travel writing, has a knack for meeting fascinating people and capturing their most revealing remarks. He introduces us to dervishes, eunuchs, partridge fighting, weddings, and expatriates. His wife contributes sketches that nicely complement his text. Considering the importance of Delhi, the capital of the world's second most populous nation, this book deserves to be in most public and academic libraries.
Harold M. Otness, Southern Oregon State Coll. Lib., Ashland
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
'Delightful ... Surely one of the funniest books about India' TLS 'Now read by Tim Pigott-Smith, City of Djinns gets a wonderful new lease of life. Dalrymple has a rare gift for historical narrative and catches the engaging, Anglo-Indian speech of his cast with telling accuracy.' Independent 23/5/98 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (March 25, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0142001007
  • ISBN-13: 978-0142001004
  • Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #40,146 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #2 in  Books > History > Asia > South Asia
    #15 in  Books > History > Asia > India
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Front Cover | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Mrs. Puri had achieved all this through a combination of hard work and good old-fashioned thrift. Read the first page
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salwar kameez, elephant fights, nautch girls
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Shah Jehan, Red Fort, Balvinder Singh, Ibn Battuta, Jama Masjid, William Fraser, Dara Shukoh, Turkman Gate, Painted Grey Ware, Punjab Singh, Qutab Minar, Ahmed Ali, Chandni Chowk, North India, Khwaja Khizr, Skinner's Horse, Mirza Nama, Professor Lal, Purana Qila, Taj Mahal, Great Mogul, Jahanara Begum, James Skinner, Lal Kot, Nadir Shah
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent portrait of a fascinating city, May 20, 2006
By Tim F. Martin (Madison, AL United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
_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).
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding, April 28, 1999
By A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
This review is from: City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi (Hardcover)
A really wonderful book about the city of Delhi. Dalrymple and his wife go to spend a year living in Delhi (how did they afford this?), and he uses this arrangement as a way of chronicling the present day status of the city and delving deep into its history. He's done a very nice job of moving back and forth between present and past, managing to keep all his meetings and interviews with various experts quite interesting. The only part which lost my interest was an extended look into Sufi mysticism, but I just skimmed it and moved along. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in India, and especially to anyone planning a trip to Delhi.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating an ancient city full of Djinns - Recommend, July 31, 2000
This review is from: City of Djinns (Paperback)
A Djinn is a spirit, not visible to the naked eye, and to see one in Delhi, India you have to cleans yourself from the natural world by fasting and prayer . In the ancient city of Delhi there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Djinns who serve to testify of both Delhi's glorious and hideous past. Delhi is one of the oldest cities in the world and for the past 3000 years has reincarnated itself. To uncover its culture and civilization takes the care and commitment of an archaeologist, or a journalist. William Dalrymple is an award winning journalist. In 1994 he was awarded the Cook Travel Award. In City of Djinns, William Dalrymple paints a vibrant portrait of Delhi past and present with colorful words. His journalistic research and unique writing skills call forth the spirits of both times past and present, illuminating for the reader the incredible history of this city.

His humorous and provocative description of how he spent a year in Delhi, with his artistic wife Olivia, while he researched the city's history brings contemporary Delhi alive. True to life characters, like his authoritative spendthrift landlady, Mrs. Puri, or his slightly maniacal taxi drive Balvinder Singh, give his settings an unusual liveliness. Add India pigeon lovers, mystical healers, an enterprising group of transvestites (eunuchs), the baffling Indian bureaucracy, weddings, parties, funerals and religious holidays and "voila" you have an entertaining and informative travel/history book.

If you are going to, or ever have been to Delhi, India you owe it to yourself to read City of Djinns. Recommended.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Saved me a trip.
I know I will never be able to visit India, so my "trip" comes from books. Dalrymple is a great tour guide. Read more
Published 15 days ago by Dick Johnson

5.0 out of 5 stars Read while visiting India
Dalrymple writes wonderfully. I read this while visiting Delhi, and it made me want to find all those places he described - many of which are off the beaten track. Read more
Published 7 months ago by MGP

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book to get a glimpse of Delhi's history
I loved reading all the three books by this author - The last Mughal, The White Mughal and City of Djinns. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Shyam Kumar

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic travel writing
The first thing that is incredibly interesting about this book is the way it is approached. To call it a travel book, I feel, is diminishing the many other aspects & experiences... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Souvik Mitra

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you for the Sufi and Muslim
I lived in Delhi for just under a year in the eighties, and if I had had this book then, it would have been a completely different experience for me. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Jeffrey Benner

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for insight on multi-layered cultures of Delhi
I was born and brought up in Delhi, and lived there for 21 years of my life, after which I emigrated to the United States. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Kirti Gupta

4.0 out of 5 stars The Legacy of Partition
« City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi » William Dalrymple HarperCollins 1993

« City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi » was my travel reading for my first trip to India in the... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Jeane FREER

5.0 out of 5 stars learn more scintillating facts about Delhi
Dalrymple knows tons about the history of Delhi. The book is poignant but not a comedy as advertised. Read more
Published 23 months ago by KV

1.0 out of 5 stars Incomplete
I didn't finish this book. I usually love this kind of book. I got tired of all the Indian Jargon. Yes, it has a glossary, but many of the words weren't even there. Read more
Published 23 months ago by L. Haverstock

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Terribly Flawed
This book re-awakened by desire to return to India, and experience once again the madness, and beauty that is India. Read more
Published on July 4, 2007 by Diplomat

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