• This is Zafar Mahal in Mehrauli. Now, if you have been to Delhi as a tourist, or if you have been to this part of Delhi as an old Delhiwala, then chances are no one has directed you to this place. But this is the summer palace of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal, and my guest is who else but William Dalrymple.You are writing this series of books about Delhi, teaching us Delhiwallahs what our city was all about. It’s almost like one of our Indian writers going to New York and London and teaching them about Harley or Hyde Park.

Well, we Scots have exactly the same. The guy who wrote the great accounts of Scottish history, was a Canadian. So there’s a precedent in my own country. So I’m getting my revenge now.

• You know history fascinates me, but it also confuses, confuses me because, look at 1857. Reading your book, there is this whole touching section of the destruction of Delhi’s Mughal monuments. Monuments, but mostly Mughal. By the British. And you write about it with a great deal of pain. You make the Raj out to be the villain there. It’s amazing that how little we read about that. We read about Jallianwala Bagh, we read about other atrocities. We know that Muslim invaders destroyed many Hindu monuments. But there is so little mention of what the British did to Old Delhi in 1857.

I think there’s a very interesting story here. Because, I think in that sense Savarkar has kidnapped your narrative of 1857. He emphasised strictly Mangal Pandey in Barrackpore and Rani of Jhansi in Jhansi. Now, they are great heroic figures and great national heroes, but ultimately, in the story of 1857, they are frankly side-shows because of the 1,39,000 sepoys who rose against their Britsh officers, 1,00,000 went straight to Delhi. Now these are upper-caste Hindus, and who do they get to lead the rebellion — the Mughal emperor.

... contd.