Capital

April 28, 2014
In this profound and fascinating book, Dasgupta (Tokyo Cancelled) conducts a series of interviews and personal explorations which reveal the history and evolution of the city of Delhi, examined through the attitudes and opinions of its inhabitants. He paints a picture of wealth and privilege, poverty and neglect, rampant corruption and boundless ambition, emphasizing the dichotomy which has transformed the landscape over the past few decades. It's a telling look at the author himself, Delhi and its people, and the 21st Century Indian culture as a whole. Packed with revelatory details and vivid in its impressions, this book covers everything from business to pleasure, sex to marriage, showing how Delhi has become a place of opportunity built on the backs of its residents. Dasgupta's sprawling narrative vibrantly captures the hustle of the current generation as they steer Delhi toward its global economic future. It's both a love letter to a city in transition and a haunting cautionary tale.

April 15, 2014
Deep, unsettling explorations into a city that has lost its soul, from a British-Indian novelist who has lived in Delhi for more than 10 years. In the two-plus decades since the 1991 "liberalisation" of the Indian economy, writes Dasgupta (Solo, 2011, etc.), its capital city has been radically transformed. Once a quiet, bureaucratic, family-oriented haven for refugees from the convulsions of the 1947 partition, Delhi is now a nakedly acquisitive engine for getting rich quick. The advent of globalization and the embrace of open markets and free enterprise brought great hope that a "new reality, uncanny and wonderful...would emerge." But as part of this new reality, land prices rose through the roof, displacing masses of longtime residents and replacing the city's famous green spaces with malls and high-rent blocks. The entrepreneurial frenzy made millionaires overnight; a new middle class broke with old traditions such as arranged marriages; and crime escalated, especially against women. The new fast-and-loose lifestyle has created what Dasgupta describes as trauma and neurosis in the people he met. His lengthy interviews with the new bourgeoisie and various upstarts alternate with historical glimpses of Delhi's important early development, including the establishment of the Mughal capital there in the 17th century, the destruction of much of the Mughal city (and Urdu culture) by the British after the 1857 sepoy uprising and the rebuilding of the city in 1911. Muslim residents fled or were hounded out after partition, encouraging an influx of Punjabis (Sikhs) who make up a large portion of today's entrepreneurs. The "mindless and heartless consumerism" of the affluent West, rejected by India under socialist-minded founder Jawaharlal Nehru and his dynasty, has now been embraced. A sincere, troubling look at India's wrenching social and cultural changes.

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Starred review from May 1, 2014

In this nonfiction debut, British Indian writer Dasgupta (winner of the 2010 Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best Book, Solo) turns his attention to a postmillennial Delhi, a city in the "vortex of change," where he has been living for the last 13 years. Through both commentary and a series of lengthy profiles of Delhi residents in their own words, the author shows the transformation that has occurred in this century. Those portrayed range from a pioneer of business process outsourcing, the immensely rich and ambitious civil servants who bemoan the collusion between politics and big business, an ex-NGO (nongovernmental organization) employee working in a slum settlement, and an environmentalist who laments the present-day disregard for indigenous ways of water conservation. What emerges from these narratives is a grim picture of a city run by oligarchs and the "new black-money elite," where success depends on "influence, assets, and connections." VERDICT This book is highly recommended for anyone looking for background information on Delhi, as Dasgupta puts forth arguable theories about the city's history and the Punjabi psyche. Still, the author's account of the downside of the post-1991 free market economy and the pursuit of self-interest above all serves as a cautionary tale, doing for Delhi what Suketu Mehta's Maximum City accomplished for Mumbai.--Ravi Shenoy, Naperville, IL

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