This is Delhi

So excited about this one. I bought this unusual city guide on ebay some time ago and I was instantly appeased by its bold cover design and rather jolly title. It came wrapped in one of those little cellophane bags and it was only when I had it in my hands that I realised how splendid the back-pocket format and print quality actually was. I’ve only ever seen one of copy of this guide before in the museum I work for, so I already had an inkling of the importance of the content before I bought it. Nevertheless, I was still chuffed to bits when it arrived in healthy condition.

The guide was published just after the close of World War Two (1946) and by all accounts it was issued for free to British serviceman who were stationed in Delhi. The guide was funded by Khan Sahib S. Rashid Ahmed mainly as thank you to the services of the army in the defence of India during the war, but also as a way of encouraging a standard of behaviour for the troops in the city. Similar guides were written for the American Forces when they were stationed in Britain. But there is something in the tone of the writing and the jaunty chapters here that gives off a general air of leisure and in that sense, the guide feels more like an early travel guide than a code of conduct.

The content is very comprehensive and is there is nothing left to chance. Chapters include: The Cockpit of India, Going Places, Delhi’s Glorious Past, On Sundays, Making Friends and even a section on Clubs for Servicemen, just to reassert the dwindling colonial ideology. In-fact, what makes this guide so special to me is that just over a year after this guide was issued, India emerged into independence and her old shackles of imperialism were finally cast off. In a sense, that made the guide only useful for a year or so. I found a cracking article by an ex-servicemen that was part of the Royal Engineer’s survey and in his story he actually mentions the usefulness of the guide.

For me though, the highlight has to be the gorgeous three colour pull-out map in the back. Loaded with lovely fonts, hand-drawn lines and interesting references to the ubiquitous British presence, it is a superb memento of those final months of Empire and I’m left wondering what I must have felt like to have been posted there before the jewel fell from the crown.