‘Dilli’ on your shelves
As the date for the Commonwealth Games draws closer, publishers gear up to sell Delhi as a brand to tourists.
Despite the controversies surrounding the upcoming Commonwealth Games, book publishers seem to have found an opportunity to show Delhi in a positive light.
Penguin India has come up with a special book shelf titled Delhi Bookshelf. It covers the entire gamut of experiences associated with the capital metropolis — from fiction to travel guides, to its history and contemporary urban legends.
Says Hemali Sodhi from Penguin Books, “We just thought it will be a good idea to put all of these books under one umbrella to make it easily accessible.”
Some of the other books include William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns, Khushwant Singh’s Delhi: A Novel and Pradeep Krishen’s classic Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide, and Sarnath Banerjee’s Corridor.
Says Milee Ashwarya, commissioning editor at Random House India, “There’ll be lots of Indian and foreign visitors visiting Delhi at this time. They may want to know about the types of cuisines available and places for shopping.”
Since the last two years, Om Books International has been putting together photographs of Delhi by Raghu Rai in a compilation. They have recently released the book. “We had not planned to coincide it with the Commonwealth Games initially. But it so happened that it got completed just at the right time,” says Ajay Mago, publisher, Om Books International.