‘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. Travelling through time, space and history to ‘discover’ his beloved city, the narrator meets a myriad of people who have shaped and endowed Delhi with its very special mystique.

About the Author

Khushwant Singh was India’s best-known writer and columnist. He was founder-editor of Yojana and editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India, the National Herald and Hindustan Times. He was a member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 but returned the decoration in 19984 in protest against the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by the Indian Army. In 2007 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan. He passed away in 2014 at the age of ninety-nine.