I read two good books in the recent past. The Insider by PV Narasimha Rao.And Delhi by Khushwant Singh.

I want to write a lot about both books. But if I write too much then I will have to be careful so that I do justice to them. So I'll just say a few words.

'Delhi' is naturally more entertaining, it being written by a professional writer. It's a first person (different first persons) account of the history of Delhi. The Delhi Sultans, the Sufi saints, the Mughal Emperors, Nadir Shah, Taimur Lane, the poet Meer Taqui Meer, Bahadur Shah Zafar and the 1857 revolt, the partition, the death of the Mahatma Gandhi, the anti-Sikh riots, all feature in the book. Translations of urdu couplets appear very often.

One realizes what kind of shallow history one is taught in school - only names and dates and who succeeded who on the throne of Hindustan. What is required is a stoic description of real (or at least believable) people and their lives. The description should be at a personal level. Only then is it possible to learn from History. Khuswant's Singh's account has a sad touch to it - You can only expect so much from Human Beings - but it is not pessimistic and beauty and vitality and poetry and spirit are also brought out in equal measure.


The Insider is an account of that part of Indian History which is never depicted in school books . Indian politics from 1947 till date. The reign of Nehru , Lal Bahadur, Indira Gandhi, the wars with China and Pakistan, the centre state relationship etc. The book gets extremely funny in parts and slightly boring in some others. Since it depicts real life it is full of anti-climaxes.

OK I want to say more but I am getting all muddled up. So I will stop abruptly here.

Maybe I will put in excerpts from both books sometime.