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Basti & Durbar Delhi-New Delhi: A City in Stories: A City in Stories
- GenresShort Stories
448 pages, Paperback
Published May 10, 2025
2 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Rakhshanda Jalil
49 books36 followersRakhshanda Jalil is a writer, critic and literary historian. Her published work comprises edited anthologies, among them a selection of Pakistani women writers entitled, Neither Night Nor Day; and a collection of esssays on Delhi, Invisible City: she is co-author of Partners in Freedom: Jamia Millia Islamia and Journey to a Holy Land: A Pilgrim s Diary. She is also a well-known translator, with eight published translations of Premchand, Asghar Wajahat, Saadat Hasan Manto, Shahryar, Intezar Hussain and Phanishwarnath Renu.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 7, 2025
Through stories from five different languages – those written originally in English as well as those translated into English from Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Malayalam – and featuring a generous number of excerpts from novels, Basti & Durbar is an anthology that gives its readers a fairly comprehensive picture of the city and its inhabitants, capturing the spirit of Delhi/New Delhi through the ages. Jalil has included voices from different eras in the anthology that help the reader navigate through Delhi as it was during certain points in history, and also be a witness to those gradual waves of change that have turned the city into its present avatar. In fact, in one of the latter tales, readers even get a glimpse of Delhi as it might be in the future.
Complete review at https://scroll.in/article/1083185/bas...
Complete review at https://scroll.in/article/1083185/bas...
December 9, 2025
“Basti & Darbar” is a collection of stories centered on Delhi. I like the expression she used in the book’s introduction, describing Delhi as a city of stories. This expression is fantastic because every city has stories, many buried in the past, some recent.
In this book, Rakshanda Jalil collated and edited stories about people living in Delhi. These stories span a century, and many capture the spirit of the times. The stories range from ordinary people living under the British Raj to those living during the Partition, and many capture life in modern Delhi.
Every story concerns only ordinary citizens, not the comings and goings of politicians and influential businesspeople. Even if you are not from Delhi, you may identify with the stories and relate them to the city you live in. Of course, if you live in, have lived in, or are familiar with Delhi and its culture, these stories will appeal to you.
I liked most of the stories and identified with the struggles, prejudices, and fate of the people I met in the book’s pages.
A challenge with a book like this lies in translation because it is not enough to transcribe the words into English. A skilled translator can capture the narrative’s ethos. I felt that some of the translations were stilted, which was a pity because the beauty of the original language was sometimes lost in translation, reducing the joy I might otherwise have experienced while reading the narratives.
Despite this shortcoming, “Basti & Darbar” is an excellent book and worth reading.
In this book, Rakshanda Jalil collated and edited stories about people living in Delhi. These stories span a century, and many capture the spirit of the times. The stories range from ordinary people living under the British Raj to those living during the Partition, and many capture life in modern Delhi.
Every story concerns only ordinary citizens, not the comings and goings of politicians and influential businesspeople. Even if you are not from Delhi, you may identify with the stories and relate them to the city you live in. Of course, if you live in, have lived in, or are familiar with Delhi and its culture, these stories will appeal to you.
I liked most of the stories and identified with the struggles, prejudices, and fate of the people I met in the book’s pages.
A challenge with a book like this lies in translation because it is not enough to transcribe the words into English. A skilled translator can capture the narrative’s ethos. I felt that some of the translations were stilted, which was a pity because the beauty of the original language was sometimes lost in translation, reducing the joy I might otherwise have experienced while reading the narratives.
Despite this shortcoming, “Basti & Darbar” is an excellent book and worth reading.
September 21, 2025
This book is in effect a collection of excerpts for the most part, chapters taken from other novels, and that in a way leaves you unsatisfied because excerpts tend to be only a snapshot of a larger canvas. it does the task of introducing you to more books though.
Another issue is that all the stories in this book are to a fault sad. Its disheartening that a city as ancient as Delhi does not get a more varied representation. I picked this up as a sequel to the Mumbai book by the same people. This one can be skipped. a book called Delhi Improbable is a better collection of writing on this old, simultaneously growing and decaying Megapolis.
Another issue is that all the stories in this book are to a fault sad. Its disheartening that a city as ancient as Delhi does not get a more varied representation. I picked this up as a sequel to the Mumbai book by the same people. This one can be skipped. a book called Delhi Improbable is a better collection of writing on this old, simultaneously growing and decaying Megapolis.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews