Delhi is haunted—by its ghosts, its ruins, and its unending capacity for rebirth. In the shadow of medieval mosques and Mughal tombs, the past refuses to stay buried. Saints, Sultans, poets, and lovers—all linger in the city’s imagination, their stories shaping how we remember what once was.
In Ghosted, historian and storyteller Eric Chopra journeys through the capital’s most beguiling sites—Jamali-Kamali, Firoz Shah Kotla, Khooni Darwaza, the Mutiny Memorial, and Malcha Mahal—to unearth a Delhi that exists between worlds: a palimpsest where Sufis bless kings, jinn listen to grievances, and begums occupy dilapidated hunting lodges. What begins as a search for Delhi’s haunted monuments becomes a meditation on why we are drawn to the dead and how ghost stories become vessels of collective memory.
Blending archival research with folklore, myth, and reflection, Chopra paints an intimate portrait of a city forever in dialogue with its former selves. Through invasions and rebirths, he reveals that Delhi’s spirit resides not just in its monuments but in the unseen presences that linger among them.
Ghosted is a lyrical, haunting journey through the city’s spectral landscape— an invitation to listen to what its echoes tell us about memory and identity.
Eric Chopra is a historian and a fellow Stephanian, so I was very excited to read this book. I can sense his passion for the subject and he’s put in a lot of work as far as research is concerned. But his writing is just dull - he managed to make an interesting subject very ho-hum. I don’t want to judge too harshly because I’ve definitely read worse non-fiction, but I’ve also read much much better non-fiction! An average book.