Unless you spot the red-beaconed car and the clothesline inside a tomb in Premola Ghose’s cover illustration, you will think Perpetual City is yet another book about the history and the monuments of Delhi. And the subtitle, A Short Biography of Delhi only furthers that idea.
However, Perpetual City, while coming from the same family of writers, is not in the mould of Khushwant Singh’s Delhi. Malvika Singh, who edits the journal Seminar with her husband Tejbir, (Khushwant Singh’s nephew) has written a very readable account of her life in the capital, interspersing it with nuggets from history and contemporary happenings. But the string holding the narrative is her life, not that of Delhi.
The style is breezy throughout, seeming laboured only when she slows down to beat the bureaucracy for the role it has played post-Independence in destroying the city’s ‘soul’, or her reminiscences of political life witnessed from up close. These occur more frequently in the second half: Changing City. She is scathing about babudom’s role: “A strange ‘modernization’, that of the babu, was beginning to usurp the city”.
Another little gripe: Though it’s unavoidable in a book of this type, Malvika’s dwelling upon her inner circle, especially when elevating the trivial to historic (Fabindia, Steakhouse) makes the book drag in parts. And her vouching for the uprightness and accessibility of the old political class on the strength of her privileged experiences distances the reader in places.
As an example, she praises Nehru for promptly responding to her father’s petition about being banned from doing voice-overs in Films Division documentaries. But later, she recounts watching Nehru in his study through a keyhole at Teen Murti House. Surely, journalist Romesh Thapar and his daughter were part of the political elite’s inner circle.
With these little complaints out of the way, the book is a pleasurable read. Whether she is informing you about the origin of the name Tees Hazari — “In 1783, thirty-thousand Sikh troops, under the command of General Baghel Singh, had crossed the Jamuna and encamped at this spot” — or recounting her Modern School days — “Shekhar Kapur, a senior in school, admired my ‘ankles’ and became a friend” — Malvika doesn’t lose grip on her tale.
She’s best when describing her own long years in Delhi — “I moved to Delhi from Bombay in the 1950s” — and those reminiscences are so full of colour as to leave even the reader wistful for a bygone way of life.
Inside dope on the Rashtrapati Bhavan ceremonial: “Gold Coin apple juice is served for the official toast instead of champagne, as the Indian state abjures alcohol”. And anecdotes: “Mrs Giri, wife of President V V Giri, was drying her hair in the traditional way by lying on a string cot with burning coals beneath it, smoking the moisture out of her locks, when the alarm went off and there was momentary panic till the staff realized it was nothing serious”.
The book also solves some urban mysteries, for instance the origin of the term lal dora: “The Mughal emperor had ordered there be no disturbance to indigenous settlements en route, when his army marched here to establish the capital and build Shahjahanabad on the banks of the Jamuna… A lal dora or red rope, was thus draped around the periphery of such villages”.
I didn’t know the buildings in Sujan Singh Park are exactly 91 feet high. And the reason: to align them with the tree line.
There’s at least one society scandal that readers will relish: “Nehru invited Roberto Rossellini who was, at the time, married to Ingrid Bergman, to make a film on India. Rossellini did come, and left this country with the woman he fell in love with during his sojourn here, Sonali Dasgupta. Sonali was married to Hari Dasgupta, who was working with Rossellini as an assistant director”.
Revealing more about that will be a spoiler. Perpetual City is a book Delhi old-timers can pick up to jog their memories, and new arrivals like me can use to feel more rooted. Just don’t read too much into the title.