Delhi unravelled

Which Delhi do you inhabit &mdash the shaded enclaves, behind those imperial gates The glittering, futuristic Gurgaon citadels of commerce The teeming bazaars of Old Delhi, or its rapidly proliferating Euro-style bars, which uniformly all play &lsquolounge&rsquo, that amorphous soundtrack to the good life Or do you live in an entirely different one altogether Ranjana Sengupta&rsquos Delhi Metropolitan The Making of an Unlikely City picks out these, and many more of the peeling layers that form the capital&rsquos ever-morphing, ever-expanding palimpsest.

If you&rsquore ever stuck in an interminable traffic jam on Aurobindo Marg, Sengupta offers you &ldquoa hundred varied and wonderful landscapes&rdquo to marvel at as you crawl along this single stretch of road &mdash including a village wall dating to the 13th century, the Mughal-era Safdarjang&rsquos Tomb, and the freshly ground coffee found in Yusuf Sarai. &ldquoA thousand years of history, government dwellings, swank colonies, inexpensive shops, high-end retail emporia, regional outlets &mdash it is all there, Delhi&rsquos amazing, eclectic mix.&rdquo

Sengupta traces modern-day New Delhi back to 1911, as an idea in the colonial imagination. It was intended as an extravagant gesture to &ldquoshowcase imperial power&rdquo by harking back to great, ancient civilisations. Its grand, sweeping avenues were inspired by Washington DC, and by extension, Versailles its columns and triumphal arches were inspired by Rome. Post-Independence, as she points out, this same grandiose colonial confection has been defanged and blithely reappropriated by the new dispensation.

This unquestioning acceptance of the structures that were constructed to impose order and control on the fearful native hordes has, she observes, lead to the spirit of &ldquoregimentation, hierarchy, exclusion&rdquo behind the bourgeois colonies that wish to fend off the poor with their soaring barricades.

Sengupta&rsquos acuity, combined with her keen, affectionate observations, bring alive with equal felicity rags-to-riches refugee sagas, life in government colonies, and the aspirations behind the bewilderingly garish Gurgaon skyline. As well as something you might find useful the next time you&rsquore assailed in conversation by an out-of-towner a careful, humorous deconstruction of the origins of the pejorative use of the term &lsquoPunjabi&rsquo.