William Dalrymple - Delhi (City of Djinns) [1/3]

William Dalrymple, a twenty five year resident of Delhi, discusses the city that he describes as the 'most complicated city he knows'.

Dalrymple divides his lecture into two parts. Firstly, Delhi in the time of his 1994 travelogue City of Djinns which, he argues, is a Delhi which vanished long ago. Today it is a city diametrically at odds with its historical reputation, and a deeply uncultured philistine city. He asks the question 'where is the city of the Mughals?'. The Delhi of today is instead, a massively vibrant media centre, and a magnet for people from the south and Mumbai seeking employment.

He reads from City of Djinns about meeting the author of Twilight in Delhi, which he describes as one of the great examples of Indo-Islamic culture in Delhi, and the lifestyle of the old Mughal elite.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• William Dalrymple
• Delhi
• City of Djinns
• Mughals
• Punjabi Sikhs
• Partition
• Twilight in Delhi
• Culture
• History
• Travel Writing
• Indo-Islamic
• Hindu Muslim