Vignettes en Route

About the Book Nineteen forty-two, Delhi. A young Bengali England-returned journalist finds himself in the capital as the controversy over the Cripps Mission gathers momentum.

Crafted in the form of an accidental travelogue, collated from the letters of the young man to a lady friend, Drishtipaat is a deeply reflective account of the capital city, its complex multi-layered history and myths, with liberal injections of humour and spirit. Peopled with vividly drawn characters, Jajabor's eye for detail has created a perfect version of the petit bourgeoisie microcosm of the times. In the backdrop, there is the looming sense of nationalism, as it attempts to intervene and transform the discourse of the day. A fascinating account of Delhi in the 1940s, this remarkable book will charm the reader, and particularly show how Delhi continues to be a city where immigrants come and meet people who are exact replicas of characters born of Jajabor's pen!

About the Author Jajabor alias Binay Kumar Mukhopadhyay was born in 1908 and at the age of thirty-eight, shot into literary fame with his very first book Drishtipaat, published in 1946. An Information Officer with the Government of India he was based in Delhi and was peripatetic in nature. He followed up Drishtipaat with another belles-lettres entitled Janantik (1952) and a historical account about Kashmir strife called Jhilam Nadir Tirey (1954). After a lull of seventeen years, he again came out with three more collections of personal essays-Laghukaran (1971), Hraswa O Dirgha (1973) and Jakhan Brishti Namlo (1983).

Binay Kumar Mukhopadhyay passed away in 2002 at the ripe old age of ninety-four.

**Contents and Sample Pages**