A more apt name for this highly readable anthology edited by Khushwant Singh, a figure who towers like the Qutab Minar over the literary world of Delhi, would have been "City Disastrous". Arranged roughly chronologically, the extracts and essays illustrate how, from the moment Duryodhana came here and angrily challenged Yudhisthira to a game of dice, the life of Delhi citizens has lurched from calamity to calamity at the whims of rulers and invaders.

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Diaries and memoirs by the main actors reveal how those who plundered and murdered found it easy to justify their actions.

Timur declares how little he wanted to destroy the city, but that God had ordained it. And juxtaposed to a description of British vengeance in 1858 by the poet Ghalib is an amazing piece of writing by Hodson-of Hodson's Horse-who exalts in his killing of the Mughal princes he captured at Humayun's tomb and wishes he could have shot down Bahadur Shah Zafar like a dog.

CITY IMPROBABLE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF WRITINGS ON DELHI Ed by Khushwant Singh Viking Price: Rs 395 Pages: 286

Sea changes took place in Delhi in 1858 when it became the capital of the Raj, at Partition, and over the half century since Independence, during which its citizens suffered the Emergency and the terror of the riots after Indira Gandhi's assassination.

All these are reflected in this volume, and the refined and deeply attractive syncretic culture of pre-Partition Delhi, where the art of hospitality was at its peak and havelis were introverted gardens, is as well-described as the babu world created by the British. Lodi Colony, Lodi Gardens and Sujan Singh Park all are described here, while Delhi's underclass finds a potent voice in Bharati Chaturvedi's article on the kabari business.

The older Delhi comprised the walled cities and, in a brilliant essay, Rukmani Bhaya Nair, poet and professor at IIT, argues that elite groups still protect themselves with walls and gates not only in the physical world, but also within their minds. Long after the colonisers have left, she finds their language of power remains safely protected inside Delhi's premier institutions and inside the hearts and minds of the best students India produces.