Delhi Gathakal (Delhi: A Soliloquy) by M Mukundan
Delhi: A Soliloquy (Malayalam) Delhi Gathakal portrays the lives of ordinary people in Delhi beset with the turmoil of Indo-Pak and Indo-China wars and their aftermath, the Emergency, and the anti-Sikh riots. The novel progresses through the stories of a bunch of protagonists, especially Malayalis living in Delhi from the early 1960s to the present. The work is important in that it records, using the tools of fiction, a certain period in the history of a particular region. However, a major disappointment was that the narration was purely linear following a traditional storytelling style and hardly using any modern techniques of fiction. The novel is almost entirely set in Delhi and hence replete with...