I NEVER INTENDED TO COME TO INDIA. I originally set out
to be an archaeologist in the Middle East, but the dig
I was assigned to in Iraq closed down — purportedly
due to a nest of British spies. So, I joined a friend who
was heading to India. I had no particular connection
to the country, but when I arrived, it was one of those
moments in life when everything changes. Thirty years
later, I’m still here. A constantly changing kaleidoscope
of things has kept me attached, and a whole variety of
careers have been facilitated by being here. My first job,
teaching, took me from the Himalayas down to the far
southern tip of country. By the time I was two stops in,
India had unveiled itself in all its complexity and beauty
— I was addicted.I’M A CHANGED PERSON, HAVING LIVED HERE. Just as I
now look different from how I did when I turned up in
India aged 18, I now think very differently too. I came
from an extremely Catholic Scottish background. I went
to monastic schools, my uncle’s a priest and my brother
became a priest, too — we took our Catholicism seriously.
Here, everyone believes in different things. Even within
Hinduism, there are million ways of practising, different
gods to worship and a choice of festivals to observe.
India is so vast and varied in a way that Britain isn’t for
me; it’s an oddly homogenous place despite its history
of immigration and empire. India has made me more
open-minded than would have been possible living in
Europe. India is a true multiculture — it’s massively
pluralistic in every sense: racially, religiously, climatically,
geographically. It’s a living lesson against dogmatism.DELHI IS MUCH UNDERRATED, EVEN WITHIN INDIA.
It’s regarded as a difficult place to live and as
a big, polluted city — although it’s been glorious
during lockdown. For me, as a historian and a
writer, Delhi is fascinating. It has such a tangiblesense of history, with monuments lying around on
roundabouts, and tombs, palaces and old city walls
wherever you turn. The Delhi Archives is also located
here — housing a lifetime of documents that have
barely been read — and when I need a break from my
research, there’s plenty going on elsewhere. Delhi has
transformed in the last couple of decades from a
government town to become a place that’s home to
India’s publishing and media industries, and many of its
best writers. It has an amazing classical music and dance
scene. I’m never bored here. In England, on a dreary
winter’s day, things can feel pedestrian. Delhi never feels
pedestrian. It always feels bonkers.I’VE BEEN TRAVELLING AROUND INDIA FOR 30 YEARS AND
THERE’S STILL A GOOD QUARTER OF THE COUNTRY I’VE
YET TO SEE. There are major monuments and mountain
ranges, extraordinary places in the Himalayas I’m
dying to visit. India is a continent rather than a country
— you could never run out of things to explore here.
I feel like a child in a sweet shop or a miser in a bank
vault sometimes. There’s an almost infinite amount to
take in, see and understand. The book I’m currently
working on is about the diffusion of Indian culture out
of India: the way Buddhism took over China, and the way
Hinduism took over Southeast Asia. Plus, how Indian
mathematics travelled first to Baghdad and then to
Renaissance Europe, giving us the decimal system and
the numerals we use today — I didn’t know all this until a
few years ago. Here I am in my mid-50s, still discovering
amazing, world-changing information whenever I open
a book about this country.William Dalrymple is the author of numerous travel
and popular history books about India. His latest
book is The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East
India Company. williamdalrymple.uk.com“ Delhi never
feels pedestrian.
It always feels
bonkers”
IMAGE: GETTY
HOW INDIA HAS CHANGED ME
WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
INDIAJul/Aug 2020 77THE POWER OF PLACE