<p><i>A provocative portrait of one of the world's largest cities, delving behind the tourist facade to illustrate the people and places beyond the realms of the conventional travelogue</i></p><p>Sam Miller set out to discover the real Delhi, a city he describes as "India's dreamtown - and its purgatory." He treads the city streets, making his way through the city and its suburbs, visiting its less celebrated destinations - Nehru Place, Rohini, Ghazipur, and Gurgaon - which most writers and travelers ignore. His quest is the here and now, the unexpected, the overlooked, and the eccentric. All the obvious ports of call make appearances: the ancient monuments, the imperial buildings, and the celebrities of modern Delhi. But it is through his encounters with Delhi's people - from a professor of astrophysics to a crematorium attendant, from ragpickers to members of a police brass band - that Miller creates this richly entertaining portrait of what Delhi means to its residents, and of what the city is becoming. </p><p>Miller, like so many of the people he meets, is a migrant in one of the world's fastest growing megapolises, and the Delhi he depicts is one whose future concerns us all. He possesses an intense curiosity; he has an infallible eye for life's diversities, for all the marvelous and sublime moments that illuminate people's lives. This is a generous, original, humorous portrait of a great city; one that unerringly locates the humanity beneath the mundane, the unsung, and the unfamiliar.</p>
