A really cool history of Delih and indian culture. Has very much made me want to go there though I highly doubt I could find all the cool places in the book and also if much of it still exsits.

Its really cool how much living history there actually is, like the fact that the great gradaughter (or something) of the last Mughal emporor who lost power basically in 1700s is still just around and living her life complaining that her family built this places and how much its being disrespected. Like it was completly a different age. It also seemed that any practice that has happened at any point in the history of Delih would still have some reminant of it happening in the Old town, like the pigeon facnying or the dancing eunuchs. Living history really is a thing if you know where to look for it. Reminds me of that man in the castle in scotland who started out as a page boy or something in the 1950s as a servent to the last lady of the castle before she sold it. He was living history and I met him, like a completly different time. Also the partitoin is crazy. Like really crazy. They destroyed so much good stuff with that. The british really do have something to answer for there. Though not like theres any point fussing over it now. The muslim city of delih is now Punjab. There also seem to be so many cool locations.

I like the idea of the Scottish family, Fraser who had a guy (William I think) who came over to delih and just basically formed his own army, living like a ancient warlord with his retinue riding round Delih killing all the bandits and bad guys. Very cool. And Lutyens with his facist architecture and new Delih thats apparently baiscally been forgoten along with most the biritsh legacy

Also the Mughal period sounds crazy, apparenlty lots of rotten people is fancy cloths killing their brothers and fathers, there was that one guy who took the throne off his father, killed his favorite son and sent him the head in a box saying “I send you a gift father, see that I have not forgotten you”. Fucked up but very cool, reminds me of the Empire in player of games.

Though by the sound of it if you think any of the modern stuff is bad Tughluq was worse. Part of the first lot of muslims he was a classic autocrat and tried to impose rather stupid ideas on his people who didnt like them, only making him angry and impose more stupid ideas. He had a secret police as well, slave girls and boys who reported to him, I didn’t realise they did that kind of shit back then, though from this guy it doesnt really suprise me. The poeple of the city staged some sort of protest against him and he retaliated by telling them he was moving the capital to Daulatabad 700 miles away and they had to walk there. Delih burnt to the ground (his actual palace was in a small place nearby so he was fine). 1 in 10 survied the walk. Also his palace sounds cool, I should find what it looks like.

I though the idea that 700 years later the maginificent tombs of these leaders are basically uncared about but some wise bloke who said some cool stuff and lived in a hovel has a tomb thats been continusly visited every day for hundrends of years, thsoe sufi mysitcs were pretty cool. Its a good moral point though, building a grand tomb doesnt make anyone respect you (unless you’re the geezer who built the pyramids).

Also the thing about some random tradition about the floods that dated back to the time of the Mahabharata (but isnt actually mentioned in the poem) is still just casually going on is pretty crazy. I wonder if it’ll stop soon though, mobile phones are a classic example of capitalisms failure, the world could be a lot better place without them. Maybe.

If I do ever get to visit delih I should reread this book.