1.
William Dalrymple, 1993, City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

This is part travelogue, part memoir, part history. It marks a massive step up from Dalrymple's first book, In Xanadu, but (for obvious reasons) does not display the maturity and poise of his later work. (White Mughals and The Last Mughal, both of which I very much enjoyed, have their genesis in this book.)

Dalrymple is a writer I really admire. He manages to communicate heavy stuff in a very elegant and digestible way, and his portrait of Delhi is fascinating.





Two quibbles:

I guess I react against too much regret in a history. City of Djinns is not the quagmire of regret that we encounter, for example, in Alex Kerr's Lost Japan, but it occasionally flirted with my limits of tolerance in this area. Yes, times change, things get neglected, heydays pass, and often this is very sad. But let's not focus on what was, but rather on what is. The sometimes grimy, grungy juxtapositions of former glory and current practicality are what, to me, make cities layered and interesting.

And while enjoying his well observed and often amusing accounts of everyday life, I do always find myself resenting the "funny locals" theme that is so prominent in Western travel literature. In fairness, this is a quality that all but disappears from Dalrymple's later work.

Having said all of which, it's enjoyable and informative, and kept me company on many a long train journey.



2.
William Dalrymple, 2009, Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

I loved this book. This is grown-up Dalrymple, self-effacing, attentive, and non-judgmental.

And the lives he describes are profoundly affecting. The Jain nun, traumatized by the loss of a colleague, and believing it is now time to stare down death in her turn. The temple courtesan who doesn't know yet that she has Aids. The tantric priestess making a home among the skulls. And many more. All with a poignant story that they are mostly left free to tell.

These people share a sense of spirituality. And the vast majority of them travel.

I sometimes wonder how often a religious calling is a socially acceptable way of assuaging an acute travel bug... It's not an easy way. But how else can some people shake free of family ties, and get themselves on the road?

But faith can also offer sanctuary. One mystic, for example,

"has fled her violent husband and even deserted her children to find refuge among sadhus... in a Bengali cremation ground. Dwelling in a landscape of mortal transience, she seeks comfort among other tolerant outcasts in the goddess's care. Ash-smeared and naked, they sip tea and listen to cricket on the radio. 'It is here in this place of death,' she tells Dalrymple, 'amid the skulls and bones and smoking funeral pyres, that we have found love.'"

Other worlds, other lives, carefully and sympathetically described. Moving and awe-inspiring.









3.
Andrew Duff, 2015, Sikkim: Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom

I wish I'd read this one before going to Sikkim...

Again, this is an author who researches carefully, and creates something out of all those documents that is appealing and accessible.

For sure, this task is aided by the backdrop for this particular bit of history: fabulous landscapes and cultures; kings and princes and unlikely marriages; espionage, double-dealing, and the whole panoply of the Great Game, now played Cold War-style...







It's not a happy story, and as you turn the pages, you genuinely feel saddened as the submergence of this little kingdom draws inexorably closer.

But what to do? Purely in terms of the loss of a unique and historic identity, Sikkim's absorption into India was a tragedy. But ultimately, strides had to be made in the direction of popular rule and ethnic accommodation. As this racy summary puts it:

"The royal family represented the interests of the landowning Sikkimese, mostly either Bhutias from Tibet or indigenous Lepchas -- both of them Buddhists. But the majority of the chogyal's subjects were neither Buddhists nor landowners. They were overwhelmingly Hindu Nepalis, who had been migrating into Sikkim for over a century and who now looked to India to redress the blatant discrimination that denied them representation proportionate to their numbers in Sikkim's lickspittle assembly."

Indeed, no-one really comes out of this story well, and all bear a share of the blame:

"...Nehru for his woolly sentimentality for the Himalayas; Indira Gandhi for her duplicity and paranoia about lurking dangers; the long procession of Indian officials -- with some exceptions -- for their foibles and high-handedness; Thondup's father, Tashi, for his self-defeating submissiveness; the colourful Namgyal sisters for their dubious role in palace affairs; local Sikkimese politicians for their self-seeking narrow-mindedness; and the Kazi, the principal political leader, for his often unreasonable competition with the palace, and his intellectual dependence on his formidable Scottish wife with her visceral dislike for the Chogyal and his queen. The main characters, the star-crossed Thondup and the puerile Hope Cooke, appear as obtuse and floundering naifs woefully ill-equipped to withstand the forces ranged against them."

Given all this, it is hard to imagine how this beautiful little polity could have escaped its fate.

And, of course, some reviewers are resolutely on India's side:

"What happened in Sikkim was an inevitable and integral part of evolving contemporary historical processes. Given Sikkim's extremely significant strategic location both in the context of India's very strained relations with China, and the potentially destructive strategic fall-out of Nepali ethnic revanchism, it is indeed a wonder that India took as long as it did in bringing about Sikkim's merger... India could have incorporated Sikkim in 1947 itself or at any time later but did not do so unlike what many countries of the world have done brazenly even in contemporary times. India has no need whatsoever to be or feel apologetic."

I don't know about that. This was probably not India's finest hour... And, as a native of another twilight polity, always confronting the prospect of being crushed in the maw of the sovereign nation-state, I can't help but sympathize with little Sikkim.

At least it still figures as a separate entity on the Traveller's Century Club list...