 First US edition | |
| Author | Rana Dasgupta |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Delhi |
| Publisher | Penguin Books (US) Canongate Books (UK) |
Publication date | 2014 |
| Pages | 464 |
| ISBN | 9780857860040 |
| 954.56053 | |
Capital: The Eruption of Delhi (also published as Capital: A Portrait of Twenty-First Century Delhi) is a 2014 book by British-born, Indian-based writer Rana Dasgupta.
Capital is an exploration of the transformation of Delhi since Dasgupta first moved to the city in 2001. It explores the changes Delhi has experienced since the boom of the Indian economy, particularly through encounters with residents of Delhi, ranging from billionaires to slum dwellers and drug dealers to metal traders. These personal stories are interwoven with over a century of history of the city.
Writing for The Observer Jason Burke praised Capital as an "intense, lyrical, erudite and powerful book" but wrote that Dasgupta's "unstated but apparent nostalgia for rural life...sometimes jars. There is nothing particularly bucolic about India's villages." [1]
In 2017 Capital received the Ryszard Kapuściński Award for Literary Reportage. It was also short-listed for the Orwell Prize and for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. [2]
Capital and its variations may refer to:
Rajasthan is a state in northern India. It covers 342,239 square kilometres (132,139 sq mi) or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern side, where it comprises most of the wide and inhospitable Thar Desert and shares a border with the Pakistani provinces of Punjab to the northwest and Sindh to the west, along the Sutlej-Indus River valley. It is bordered by five other Indian states: Punjab to the north; Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to the northeast; Madhya Pradesh to the southeast; and Gujarat to the southwest. Its geographical location is 23°.3' to 30°.12' North latitude and 69°.30' to 78°.17' East longitude, with the Tropic of Cancer passing through its southernmost tip.
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Lying on both sides of the Yamuna river, but chiefly to the west, or beyond its right bank, Delhi shares borders with the state of Uttar Pradesh in the east and with the state of Haryana in the remaining directions. Delhi became a union territory on 1 November 1956 and the NCT in 1995. The NCT covers an area of 1,484 square kilometres (573 sq mi). According to the 2011 census, Delhi's city proper population was over 11 million, while the NCT's population was about 16.8 million. Delhi's urban agglomeration, which includes the satellite cities Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon and Noida in an area known as the National Capital Region (NCR), has an estimated population of over 28 million, making it the largest metropolitan area in India and the second-largest in the world.
New Delhi is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Sansad Bhavan, and the Supreme Court. New Delhi is a municipality within the NCT, administered by the NDMC, which covers mostly Lutyens' Delhi and a few adjacent areas. The municipal area is part of a larger administrative district, the New Delhi district.
Sialkot is a city located in Punjab, Pakistan. It is the capital of the Sialkot District and is the 13th most populous city in Pakistan. The boundaries of Sialkot are joined with Jammu in the north east, the districts of Narowal in the southeast, Gujranwala in the southwest and Gujrat in the northwest.
Meerut is a city in Meerut district of the western part of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The city lies 80 km (50 mi) northeast of the national capital New Delhi, within the National Capital Region and 480 km (300 mi) west of the state capital Lucknow.
Rana Dasgupta is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He grew up in Cambridge, England, and studied at Balliol College, Oxford, the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud in Aix-en-Provence, and, as a Fulbright Scholar, the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 2010 The Daily Telegraph called him one of Britain's best novelists under 40. In 2014, Le Monde named him one of 70 people who are making the world of tomorrow. Among the prizes won by Dasgupta's works are the Commonwealth Prize and the Ryszard Kapuściński Award.
Sir Partha Sarathi Dasgupta is an Indian-British economist who is Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.
Indraprastha is mentioned in ancient Indian literature as a city of the Kuru Kingdom. It was the capital of the kingdom led by the Pandavas mentioned in Mahabharata. Under the Pali form of its name, Indapatta, it is also mentioned in Buddhist texts as the capital of the Kuru mahajanapada. Modern historical research pin its location in the region of present-day New Delhi, particularly the Old Fort. The city is sometimes also known as Khandavaprastha or Khandava Forest, the name of a forest region on the banks of Yamuna river which had been cleared by Krishna and Arjuna to build the city.
Jason Burke is a British journalist and the author of several non-fiction books. A correspondent covering Africa for The Guardian, he is currently based in Johannesburg, having previously been based in New Delhi as the same paper's South Asia correspondent. In his years of journalism, Burke has addressed a wide range of topics including politics, social affairs and culture in Europe and the Middle East. He has written extensively on Islamic extremism and, among numerous other conflicts, covered the wars of 2001 in Afghanistan and 2003 in Iraq, the latter of which he described as "entirely justifiable from a humanitarian perspective".
Nizamuddin Dargah is the dargah (mausoleum) of the Sufi saint Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya. Situated in the Nizamuddin West area of Delhi, the dargah is visited by thousands of pilgrims every week. The site is also known for its evening qawwali devotional music sessions. The descendants of Nizamuddin Auliya look after the whole management of dargah Sharif.
Swapan Dasgupta is an Indian journalist and politician. He is influential within the Indian right wing, writing columns for leading English dailies espousing Indian nationalism. He is a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha. In 2015, Dasgupta was conferred with the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to literature and education.
The Chittorgarh, also known as Chittod Fort, is one of the largest forts in India. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The fort was the capital of Mewar and is located in the present-day city of Chittorgarh. It sprawls over a hill 180 m (590.6 ft) in height spread over an area of 280 ha above the plains of the valley drained by the Berach River. The fort covers 65 historic structures, which include four palaces, 19 large temples, 20 large water bodies, 4 memorials and a few victory towers.
Delhi has been an important political centre of India as the capital of several empires. The recorded history of Delhi begins with the 8th century Tomar Rajputs kingdom. It is considered to be a city built, destroyed and rebuilt several times, as outsiders who successfully invaded the Indian subcontinent would ransack the existing capital city in Delhi, and those who came to conquer and stay would be so impressed by the city's strategic location as to make it their capital and rebuild it in their own way.
Rahon is a city and a municipal council in the district Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar of the Indian state of Punjab. Rahon is in Doaba region of Punjab. Doaba also known as Bist Doab, is the region of Punjab, India that lies between the Beas River and the Sutlej River. A famous battle was fought here between Sikhs and Mughals i.e Battle of Rahon (1710).
Amiya Kumar Bagchi is an Indian political economist.
The Jaipur Literature Festival, or JLF, is an annual literary festival which takes place in the Indian city of Jaipur each year in the month of January. It was founded in 2006.
Probal Dasgupta is an Indian linguist, Esperanto speaker and activist. Dasgupta's interest in linguistics started at a very young age. He published his first article in phonology at the age of eighteen in Indian Linguistics the journal of the Linguistic Society of India His 1980 New York University PhD dissertation Questions and Relative and Complement Clauses in a Bangla Grammar is considered one of the seminal works in Bangla syntax.
Chittagong, the second largest city and main port of Bangladesh, was home to a thriving trading post of the Portuguese Empire in the East in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Portuguese first arrived in Chittagong around 1528 and left in 1666 after the Mughal conquest. It was the first European colonial enclave in the historic region of Bengal.
JCB Prize for Literature is an Indian literary award established in 2018. It is awarded annually with ₹2,500,000 (US$31,000) prize to a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer working in English or translated fiction by an Indian writer. The winners will be announced each November with shortlists in October and longlists in September. It has been called "India's most valuable literature prize". Rana Dasgupta is the founding Literary Director of the JCB Prize. In 2020, Mita Kapur was appointed as the new Literary Director.