Capital: A Portrait of Twenty-First Century Delhi

After two well-received books of fiction – the collection of short stories, Tokyo Cancelled, and his Commonwealth prize-winning novel Solo – Capital is Rana Dasgupta’s first book of non-fiction. Capital is the story of Delhi, its eventful history, its complex politics, its rapid and chaotic modern development, and above all, its diverse inhabitants. It is this last element that makes this book truly wonderful, for while Dasgupta writes compellingly about the physical city of Delhi, it is his uncovering and dissecting of the Delhi-dweller’s psyche that is especially engaging and insightful.

Much has been written about the history of Delhi, going back as it does over many centuries. It has changed names and shape and rulers a number of times and these changes have been well-documented. Dasgupta covers a lot of the same ground, but he also masterfully employs anecdotal history, skilfully setting the personal against the past, to add depth and interest to his story of the capital. He talks to Delhiites from various, often completely contrary, backgrounds and he is at his best when portraying the changing roles of men and women in modern Delhi.

In a chapter on the corrupt practices in Indian private hospitals, Dasgupta quotes a doctor who is talking about victims of property wars whose bodies end up in the Hindon River. The bodies are fished out by locals looking to make some money, and sold to a dental college that needs cadavers for its students to practise their skills – for the doctor, it’s ‘an appropriate image for Indian medicine today. Taking the chaos of our society and turning it into profit’.

In a sense, throughout Capital, Dasgupta shows us how, after the tumultuous biography of Delhi, turning chaos into profit is an essential skill in the lives of its modern-day citizens.

Kabita Dhara is a freelance reviewer.