William Dalrymple Is a Travel Writer in City Of Djinns

William Dalrymple’s second book entitled “City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi” (1993), which bagged the prestigious “Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award” in 1994. As suggested in the title, the text is based on the city rather than a journey-based travel literature. The experiences and stories that Dalrymple expresses about the city of Delhi and his encounters there regularly shift into the realm of history. In specific, the text is related with the historical (and continuing) association between Britain and India. The ways in which this association is exemplified, vary throughout City of Djinns, but an optimistic, touchy view of the British imperial endeavor remains perpetual. The numerous avenues that City of Djinns undertakes to progress this conservative demonstration of India and its historical past are scrutinized throughout the chapter. Especially among these is ardent Orientalising tendency, particularly apparent in the preoccupation of text with gendered and sexualised accounts of courts of Mughal, dancing girls, decadence and courtesans. “City of Djinns” employs portrayals of the different forms of architecture of Delhi to emphasize specific aspects of populations of the city, past and present, with an attention on Mughal and British colonial frameworks