They say Delhi belongs to no one. Perhaps they’re right. For it seems everyone who lives in it calls someplace else home, from its slum dwellers to its ruling classes. As if its non-identity were its identity. Rakhshanda Jalil, who calls Delhi her home without reservation, searches for this invisible city, through stories—about Dilli, New Delhi, and everything in between.

In the twenty-nine stories in this collection, there is a city that pushes through in its unbearable heat and cold and a city that plays golf and rummy at the Gymkhana Club; a phoenix city built by the Mughals, then again by the British, and one that survived the Partition and shelters its victims; and a city of lovers, but also of debauchery and thick-skinned politicians and babus. Among the writers are legends and new voices—Bhisham Sahni, Kamleshwar, Mohan Rakesh, Rashid Jahan, Khushwant Singh, Kartar Singh Duggal, Keki Daruwalla, M. Mukundan, Asghar Wajahat, Namita Gokhale, Uday Prakash, Navtej Sarna, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Sujit Saraf, Vandana Singh, Manjula Padmanabhan, Ajay Navaria and Priya Haleja.

Basti & Durbar is an intimate portrait of Delhi. It will also be an enduring one.