Delhi

Front Cover
Penguin Books, 1990 - Fiction - 391 pages
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.

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Contents

Delhi
1
Bhagmati
28
Musaddi Lal
50
Copyright

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About the author (1990)

Khushwant Singh was born on February 2, 1915 in the village of Hadali in what is now the Punjab province of Pakistan. He attended St. Stephen's College in Delhi, Government College in Lahore, and King's College London. In 1947, he worked for India's ministry of external affairs and served as press officer in Ottawa and London. From 1980 to 1986, he was a member of the upper house of the Indian parliament. He was an author and journalist. His newspaper column, With Malice Towards One and All, was syndicated all over India. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 100 novels and short-story collections including Train to Pakistan, I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, Delhi: A Novel, The Company of Women, and The Sunset Club. He also wrote a two-volume History of the Sikhs, an autobiography entitled Truth, Love and a Little Malice, and a book of biographical profiles entitled The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous. He died on March 20, 2014 at the age of 99.

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