A Note from the Author

In this novel I have tried to tell the story of Delhi from its earliest beginnings to the present times. I constructed it from records chronicled by eye-witnesses. Hence most of it is told in the first person. History provided me with the skeleton. I covered it with flesh and injected blood and a lot of seminal fluid into it. It took me twenty-five years to do so. I am not sure whether I have succeeded in my venture.

Some chapters in an earlier draft were published in Evergreen Review of New York and The I llustrated Weekly of India.

New Delhi

15 September 1989

Khushwant Singh

Footnotes

Chapter II

*Acacia arabica