![]() ![]() A poet and a calligrapher, he was the philosopher king who cried for his own freedom. Bahadur Shah Zafar II, a "reserved and rather beautiful old man with a fine aquiline nose and a carefully trimmed beard" is introduced as a chessboard king.Ī melancholic octogenarian whose power didn't extend beyond the Red Fort. It is the last, gasping evening of the Mughal dynasty, and the emperor, the last of the great Mughals, is withering away. And it is inhabited by captivating characters, Indians and British. The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857 is larger in its ambition and is more intense in its drama, played out in the backdrop of a defining period in India's struggle with the Empire. ![]() White Mughals, the second, told the story of many British who had gone native. ![]() That cannot be said about Dalrymple, an honorary Delhiwallah who laments: "Sometimes it seems as if no other great city of the world is less loved, or less cared for." City of Djinns, still a bestseller and a customary reading before "getting into the city", was his first Delhi book, published 15 years ago. ![]()
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