Delhi: A Novel

Product Description

I return to Delhi as I return to my mistress Bhagmati when I have had my fill of whoring in foreign lands…’ Thus begins Khushwant Singh’s vast, erotic, irrelevant magnum opus on the city of Delhi. The principal narrator of the saga, which extends over six hundred years, is a bawdy, ageing reprobate who loves Delhi as much as he does the hijda whore Bhagmati-half man, half woman with sexual inventiveness and energy of both the sexes. Travelling through time, space and history to ‘discover’ his beloved city, the narrator meets a myriad of people-poets and princes, saints and sultans, temptresses and traitors, emperors and eunuchs-who have shaped and endowed Delhi with its very special mystique. And as we accompany the narrator on his epic journey we find the city of emperors transformed and immortalized in our minds forever.

From Publishers Weekly

This sprawling, erotic, exotic novel spiked with Rabelaisian humor is set in both modern and ancient Delhi. The narrator is a journalist and sometimes tour guide/lover to rich foreign women who visit his native city, such as Lady Hoity-Toity, the noted archaeologistp. 13 . From his numerous short-lived sexual affairs, about which he boasts to friends, to his ongoing relationship with a hijda (half-man half-woman) prostitute named Baghmati, to fairy-tale-like stories within the story about Delhi’s history dating back to the 1300’s, a unique vision of Delhi emerges–one that is filled with both affection and revulsion, a city of temples and bazaars, of muddy waters, filth and poverty. Comparing his love for Delhi with his love for Baghmati, he sets out to “explain the strange paradox of his lifelong, love-hate affair with the city and the woman,” warning that it may read like “A Fucking Man’s Guide to Delhi: Past and Present.” As much fun as the novel is, however, especially at the outset, it goes on too long without much plot to drive it. Singh is a veteran Indian journalist and author of Train to Pakistan .

Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Khushwant Singh is India’s best-known writer and columnist. He has been founder-editor of Yojana and editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, the National Herald and the Hindustan Times. He is the author of classics such as Train to Pakistan, I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale and Delhi. His latest novel, The Sunset Club, written when he was 95, was published by Penguin Books in 2010. His non-fiction includes the classic two-volume A History of the Sikhs, a number of translations and works on Sikh religion and culture, Delhi, nature, current affairs and Urdu poetry. His autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, was published by Penguin Books in 2002. Khushwant Singh was a member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 but returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by the Indian Army. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan. Among the other awards he has received are the Punjab Ratan, the Sulabh International award for the most honest Indian of the year, and honorary doctorates from several universities. He passed away in 2014 at the age of 99.