Capital: Read an excerpt from the award-winning book by Rana Dasgupta

The British author wrote about a rapidly transforming Delhi, during his 17 years there, in the early Aughts. Snapshots from a time of upheaval and expectation.

The Delhi artists and intellectuals among whom I now found myself spoke at a pitch I have never encountered in another place or, indeed, in the same place since that period. Certainly, they were people of striking brilliance and originality, but the furious energy of their debates came also from the city outside. The old was dying, the new was in preparation, and we were living in the in-between, when nothing was resolved, everything was potential. Everyone was trying to