Our Capital is not short of detractors — or enthusiasts. Often they’re the same people. It’s that kind of city. It’s also a city that wallows in a perennial nostalgia for itself.
This handsomely produced coffee-table book seems smartly conceived to exploit the chronic ambivalence of Dilliwalas. So did I like it? Well, yes…and no.
Delhi Then & Now (Roli, Rs 2,475) has two covers, two authors (essays), and sadly, two standards. Narayani Gupta is passionate and informed, Bobb does a pleasant gloss. But it’s really the pictures that matter here and publisher Pramod Kapoor is credited with picture research and editing for the entire volume. In the Then half he has done a splendid job. The section is replete with many familiar classics (such as Margaret Bourke-White’s shot of refugees in the Purana Qila) and even more delectable surprises. There are two panoramic fold-outs of the city in 1858 and several startling aerial photographs. The cover picture itself is a particular treat. One quibble — many of the photographs are undated with captions that tell us little about their provenance.
That’s the good part. The other half of the book is awful. Given the proliferation of photographers and camera technology in recent years it is bizarre that the archival images here should be so plainly superior in visual sophistication and technique. There are a few arresting images in Delhi Now but far too many are over-enlarged, clumsily shot, poorly scanned, or just plain boring. And you could drive the Blueline fleet through its sins of omission. Where are the colonies of New Delhi, Refugee or JJ? Where is the weather? The traffic? The river (one picture!)? We get instead a stock shot of the Alliance Française, an unpeopled interior of Olive restaurant… The cover picture — of the Chatwal bahu being anointed (caption: ‘a typical Delhi wedding’) takes the cake.