Madhulika Liddle

My first novel, The Englishman’s Cameo, published by Hachette India, is a detective story set in 17th century Delhi. — “Muzaffar Jang is that rare creature in Mughal Emperor Shahjahan’s Dilli – an aristocrat with friends in low places. One of whom, Faisal, stands accused of murder. When the body of Mirza Murad Begh is found stabbed in the chest, lying in a water channel in the Qila, poor Faisal is the only one around. But what of the fact that, right before his demise, the victim had stepped out of the haveli of Shahjahanabad’s most ravishing courtesan? Could not the sultry Mehtab Banu, and her pale, delicate sister Gulnar have something to do with the murder? Determined to save his friend, Muzaffar decides to investigate, with only a cup now and then of that new-fangled brew – Allah, so bitter – called coffee to help him…”

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On a hot day, we climb the Great Wall of China. Not, unfortunately, at Simatai or Mutianyu, the less touristy sections of the Wall near Beijing, but at Badaling. Badaling is 70km from Beijing, the nearest the Wall comes to the capital, and the most commercial and crowded section.
Hanging on to the iron railing that [...]

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In the early years of the 17th century, a powerful but eccentric nobleman built a pleasure resort against a backdrop of the wooded hills outside Salzburg. Archbishop Markus Sitticus named his pretty yellow palace Schloss Hellbrunn. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Sitticus had little love for gilded chandeliers and brocade drapes. So he set about filling [...]

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Pondicherry has a strangely surreal feel to it.
It’s not as if India is short of places with a colonial past. Just about every hill station in the country, from Nainital to Ooty, has its clutch of old stone churches, its Mall Road and its little shops selling jams and marmalades. Many also have old cottages [...]

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