Excellently written book that truly paints a realistic picture of the rich culture of Delhi from the sparkling socialites to the street urchin, from the ancient myth of the Mahabharata all the way to present day.

I only read about a third of the book. As others have said the story really meanders and it is not very engaging. It is nice that it is made up of snippets of life, but I feel without an engaging plot or a great deal of historical information, it was really lacking.

Dalrymple is the best kind of guide, alternating lively stories of the complex history of the city with the joys and frustrations of his daily life in an apartment in Delhi. He is in search of a past which seems to be vanishing even as he writes of it, as buildings are torn down and the population swells. He tracks down Brits who stayed on after independence whose stories seem like something out of Monty Python. The tensions between Muslims and Hindus that he describes in 1994 was reflected almost word for word in our guide's rant about Muslims last week, (they are all terrorists, their allegiance is to jihad not to India, they breed like rabbits while Hindus have only one child, where will the Hindus go, there is no Hindu country, and on and on). In 16 hours in the city, I barely saw any of it, so I would love to return. This was a pure delight to read during my stay.