The book also has interesting examples of micro-histories within the larger history, for example the history of the Eunuchs and the change in perception about them from the times of the Mahabharata to the Mughal period.Īs a British man himself, he is a descendant of the coloniser and he comes at the subject with an outsider’s point of view often expressed in his account of things like Indian weddings or the bride’s role in an Islamic Nikaah. Further his use of monuments as a material text that embodies history as well as oral histories also makes the book a post-modernist text. Through its varied literary sources that range from other historical travelogues and memoirs, literary fiction and translations the book is clearly making several inter-textual references. Dalrymple’s fondness for Delhi is palpable and he seems in awe of the city, while at the same time trying to be factually truthful and scholarly in his writing. In one sense, City of Djinns is a post-colonial text - A historical account of the National Capital of Delhi. Through the book he appears in search of survivors of every era in the architecture (Lutyen’s Delhi, the settlement of Trilokpuri, Chandni Chowk Havelis, The Tughlaqabad Tomb, Fraser’s house etc), the people (Balwinder Singh, Marion and Joe Fowler, the Hijras), the practices (calligraphy, cock-fighting, Unani medicine), the experts (Dr Jaffrey, Dr BB Lal) and the written accounts (Bernier’s Travels in the Mughal Empire, Twilight in Delhi by Ahmed Ali, Muraqqa’-e-Dehli by Kuli Khan and many others).īut it is the author’s journey of discovery that becomes the agent to move the book along, told as a narrative account of his research and chronologically faithful to the year he spends doing the research in Delhi. Dalrymple is trying to unravel Delhi as a city made up of many cities that existed in the various periods and its many different lived realities. As he moves in a chronologically reverse direction from his present day, each subsequent period is established through the multiple imperialist regimes that established their capitals in Delhi. The book is simultaneously an autobiographical account of his research on the city as a historian and a travel guide book. Dalrymple is a Journalist and a Historian is a visitor to Delhi and the book is as much a chronicle of his year spent in the city as a text on its history.
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