The Destruction of Art and Architecture in Delhi
Wandering through the streets of Old Delhi at dawn is unlike anything else. While the crowds of market sellers, imams, and cycle rickshaws lie asleep, the last remaining traces of the Mughal capital loom over you through the morning mist. One discovers a whole new set of marvels on every trip: the m
Revelations
London, 1924 They did not normally have people for dinner. The war made such gluttony feel unfair; the empty chairs and departed voices had subsumed the vivid pleasures of ante-bellum times. But now, for the first time in a very long time, there would be something of a party at number fifteen Eaton
A structure of stones, a structure of stories
In the shadow of Camlough Mountain, there stands a hill. It rises out of the deep-set vale—a crease amid the furrows of rolling fields and verdant meadows sprawled out like a patchwork quilt. Proudly yet gently it brushes the sky and looms over the village below. Atop this hill, which goes by the
Cannibalism in Oxford
While recently reading a lip-smacking review of Bill Schutt’s entertaining new history of cannibalism, Eat Me (2017), I was reminded of a hair-raising epicurean moment in an Oxford seminar room. In 1987, I participated in the Sixth International Oral History Conference on ‘Myth and History’, a
A getaway to Goa
“You want people to come to India, without having to deal with Indians”, Aishwarya Rai tells Martin Henderson in the Bollywood, Jane Austen spin-off Bride and Prejudice. Henderson’s ‘Mr Darcy’ plans on investing in a 5-star resort to attract western tourists. The resort is to be built in I
Wenjiang
When I lived in Wenjiang District, Sichuan province, I used to walk home along the river. The reflections from the lamps lining the riverbank created golden pools of light, calling to mind the meaning of Wenjiang, ‘warm river’. Walking past groups of dancers, I would attract stares from old men
Visible and Invisible History in Budapest
A muscular arm, outstretched; a clenched fist trailing a ragged flag into an arc over head and shoulders. A friend’s comment that the statue is not “artful” (whatever that means) is disputed by an onlooker, possibly one of the ‘communist nostalgia tourists’. My guidebook comments: “It is
Notes on Port Meadow
Robert Lindsey, a Freeman since he was eighteen, explained to me that any non-Freeman wanting to keep animals on the meadow has to pay the group for the privilege, or risk having their chattels confiscated in an annual roundup.