Isbn: 9789350020722 - smoke without fire: portraits of pre-partition delhi (1 Ergebnisse)

Contents Foreword by Sheila Dikshit 1 Childhood reveries 2 Ballimaran--Haveli Hissamuddin Haider--Mahal Sarai 3 A marriage birth and death in the family 4 The shop 5 The silver jubilee 6 Off to school 7 Winds of change 8 Amongst Taliban and Pehelwans 9 The quit India interlude 10 The war ends 11 On the eve 12 The flight AppendicesThe book could have been appropriately sub-titled as Life in Pre-Partition Delhi Dilli Laid Bare It is the first and easily the last one of its kind by one of the vanishing breed of vintage Dilliwalas born bred and educated over there before emigrating to Pakistan Old Dilli of the author?s childhood breathed the very air of the life and times of Ghadar-the Revolt or the Mutiny of 1857 Until the early 30s there was hardly any electricity running water pucca paved streets and public transport except for tongas and dolies for women traveling from one mohallah one house one street to anotherThe book covers the intriguing canvas of life as seen by the author as a child and a Youngman It also tells the story of an old family through its cycles of birth marriage and deathThe author pries deep into the back alleys of the ancient city and portrays the youthful and adult delinquencies seen in their nook and crannies The book is the third of the author?s Partition Qartet The other two being Tuqseme-i-Hind aur Bahadur Shah Zafar ki Wapsi Partition and the Return of Bahadur Shah Zafar-Urdu and Partition and the Making of Mohajir Mindset Oxford The fourth and the last of the quartet Partition An Emperor?s Nightmare is under publication The book is refreshingly free from the kind of morbid nostalgia associated with such personal narratives 306 pp.…