Book review: Delhi by Heart by Raza Rumi

A somewhat incoherent heart

I really don’t know what quite to make of this book.

Ahmed Rumi, a development professional from Pakistan, has occasion to visit Delhi a few times and is totally enthralled by the familiar yet unfamiliar feel of the city. So he takes quite some trouble to get to know Delhi (though it’s clearly a labour of love for him), old and new, and writes this book.

Raza browses the city’s bookshops; meets some of Dehi’s most interesting people (his choice, nevertheless an impeccable line-up of that includes Khushwant Singh, Irfan Habib, Mushirul Hasan, Rakshanda Jaleel, Dr Shreekant Gupta, Vidya Rao, Qurratulain Hyder); he visits Dilli’s magnificent tombs, memorials and ruins over and over; he watches an engrossing Dastangoi performance; he relishes the foods of old Delhi; he visits the sprawl of slums just outside the city; he reads up and quotes from many books on Delhi; he makes pronouncements on the Dalits, the masterplan of the city, the slums, `untamed sewage,` his `claptrap blogposts`(?!). He even touches on communal politics, the brave man. And yes, he rues that the city has so many `history-immune` Dilliwalas now.

Sadia Dehlvi becomes Raza’s mentor of sorts and is quoted ad nauseam through the book. The author seems to take the obliteration of Dilli’s Mughal past quite personally. In fact, Raza Rumi’s sense of otherness permeates every page of the book, sometimes adding to the emotional content, sometimes so unrestrained the reader has to stop herself from an eye-roll.

The book is straight from the heart; a well-intentioned work but something gets seriously lost in the execution.

Delhi can always do with yet another book about it. Delhi by Heart would have been a pleasant read but for the many errors of language, syntax, and the most awkward of sentence constructs.

The lack of diligent editing is so glaring an omission that after a while, I was looking out for the errors that sprang up virtually on every other page. Here are a few:

• * An intense cultural amalgamation was at the core of society and separateness was impossible.
• * …without any need to level with an imposed visitor.
• *  I was not managed to attend one.
• * …steeped in letters, he holds a Doctorate….
• * Intrigued as a Pakistani by a Hindu woman singing Muslim devotional poetry…
• * This festival has fallen victim to corporate distastefulness…
• * Tears are welling up in the corner s of his two bright Turkish eyes…
• * Someone who resonates my own internal restlessness…
• * …Muslim women are not supposed to be heard loud and that too while singing.
• * We ate and ate many portions of chaat.
• * The Curzon Room still wafts the aromas of British India…
• * He provoked us discussants…
• * We spoke in Punjabi, often using lines that would quite miss those outside the `Punju` realm.
• * No one could imagine…not even the steel-frame of the colonial administration.

And this one, a personal favourite: …..

* she personified the lifelong anguish of one whose folk-apples of belonging were sliced through their cores by distant hands soiled by power.

I need to take a break from travel books.