So here is what I submitted. It’s a story called Maplewood, set in a fictitious colonial bungalow (named Maplewood), where an old widow, transplanted into the middle of the sleepy backwaters of the country, passes her days. It’s a story that came deep from within my heart – not because I myself have felt what the narrator of Maplewood must feel, but I can imagine it. And I can imagine what my reaction would be if I were to find myself in her place.

Do read, and let me know what you think.

                          

While I’m not as prolific a writer as some of the other members, I have managed to notch up 100 travel journals—each with at least five separate entries—for destinations as far apart as Melbourne and Chicago, Ladakh and Strasbourg, plus many, many more. More journals are on the way, some partly done, some in the process. Travel writing is a journey in itself!

I’m happy to say that nearly all my journals have won a ‘Best of IgoUgo’ editor rating. (All except one; back when I visited Paris, there was a rule that an IgoUgo travel journal could only get that rating—irrespective of the standard of writing—if it contained at least 5 original photographs. Our camera was stolen at the Louvre on our very first day in Paris. So, while Paris lives on in my mind’s eye, I have no photos to show for it).

I’ve been nominated off and on for several years for one of the annual IgoUgo awards (including Travel Writer of the Year)—but have never won.

Till now.

The IgoUgo Travel Awards for 2011 were announced yesterday, and yours truly won the ‘Chirpy Copy Award’ for best nature writing. It’s for a journal about one of my 2011 trips, to my favourite national park in north India: Corbett. The journal’s called ‘Deep in the Jungle: Corbett National Park’. I enjoyed my trip, I enjoyed writing about it—and I’m glad other people seem to have liked it too!

While I’m at it, I may as well toot on my trumpet a bit more, vis-à-vis IgoUgo. I’m a member of their Hall of Fame (I was inducted in 2006), and they’ve even interviewed me, after The Englishman’s Cameo was published in 2009.

                          

I have actually had other writers – of more ‘literary’ fiction, generally – look at me with faintly raised eyebrows, as if wondering if I’ll be able to respond intelligently, should they condescend to address a few sentences to me. I’ve had readers ask, “Since you’ve done so much research, why don’t you use it to write something constructive? Like a book on what India might have been like if Dara Shukoh, instead of Aurangzeb, had succeeded Shahjahan?”

(That reader actually added that crime fiction, after all, was a ‘hobby’).

So it is a very refreshing change to be part of something that doesn’t tolerate crime fiction, it celebrates it.

From February 24^th to 26^th this year, the English Department at Delhi University’s St Stephen’s College organised and hosted Body of Evidence, an International Conference on Crime Fiction. Hachette India, along with Quill and Canvas, set up a bookstall – with a mouth-watering range of books, especially crime and detective fiction – on the lawns next to the library.

That was fun (though I ended up buying only two books, since most of what I really liked, I’d already read) – and even more fun were the three days of sessions. Okay, I should probably amend that to the one and a half days of sessions that I sat through. I wasn’t able to make it on the 25^th, and could stay only for half of the day on the 24^th, but I liked – really liked – a lot of what I heard and saw during the time I was present.

Body of Evidence (St Stephen’s called it a ‘ConFest’ – a combination of a ‘conference’ and a ‘festival’) included a number of interesting papers and presentations by students, academicians, writers, journalists and other crime fiction enthusiasts. Most of those that I listened to were of exceptionally high calibre: analytical, smart, and entertaining.

Among my favourites were ‘Masculinity in the Construction of Feluda as a Detective (Surangama Dutta, Jesus and Mary College); ‘Mary Higgins Clark: Crime in New York and the World of the Urban Heroine – an Overview’ (Arjun Rajkhowa, St Stephen’s College), Anarchy in the UK: Crime, Capital and the Child in Michael de Larrabeiti’s “Borrible” books (Aishwarya Subramaniam, Freelance writer and reviewer), and a delightfully visual presentation, by Avinash Mudaliar of Indiatimes, on ‘Reinvention of Crime Fiction: The Recurrence of Classic Crime Fiction in the “New Age”’.

The evenings – which I admit (very sheepishly) to have missed – consisted of more relaxed events: a quiz, a movie screening (of The Perfect Murder) and a play (Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound).

So – what was I doing here, besides enjoying myself? Well, for one, I was part of a discussion panel that met on the last day. Jaya Bhattacharji Rose chaired the session, and on the panel were Icelandic crime writer Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Partha Basu, and yours truly. It was a wonderful, relaxing chat – one of the most pleasant and insightful panel discussions I’ve ever been part of.

And yes, the last day’s sessions began with an address from me. When Dr Giti Chandra, the Conference Convenor, had asked me if I’d like to do that, I’d immediately sprung at the chance – because here was my opportunity to share my love for historical detective fiction with others. My talk, while it did (naturally) touch on my own books about Muzaffar Jang, was wider than that in its scope – I talked about some of my other favourite historical detectives, about TV and film adaptations of these detective stories, and of the main challenges one faces when writing in this particular subgenre of crime fiction.

If you didn’t know about the ConFest or couldn’t attend it, do pray that it becomes an annual feature of the St Stephen’s calendar. It’s a brilliant, informative, delightful way to interact with people who do take crime fiction seriously.

And, if you’d like to know what I said, click here to read the speech I’d prepared as a reference.

                          

Later this month, for example, I’ll be speaking at the Crime Fiction ConFest (that’s a combination of ‘conference’ and ‘festival’) being held at St Stephen’s College, Delhi University. I’ll be the key speaker on the last day of the ConFest, and will be talking about historical detective fiction – introducing the subgenre, talking about the challenges of writing good historical detective fiction, and of course suggesting other authors you might want to read if you want to explore this fascinating subgenre further. I’ll be publishing a version of my talk on this site, so look out for that!

Meanwhile, here are links to some more reviews of The Eighth Guest & Other Muzaffar Jang Mysteries:

On Book Weyr:

http://bookweyr.blogspot.in/2012/01/eighth-guest-madhulika-liddle.html

In Media Voice:

http://www.mediavoicemag.com/arts/book/4812-a-desi-detective.html

And, on The Hungry Reader, by Vivek Tejuja (who was one of the first people to review The Englishman’s Cameo – he liked that one too!):

https://thehungryreader.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/book-review-the-eighth-guest-and-other-muzaffar-jang-mysteries-by-madhulika-liddle/

                          

How’s this different from merely reading the books for yourself? Or from simply going to Chandni Chowk yourself? Because it’s fun to have a historian beside you, who can point out how things have changed, and how they’ve remained alive. How a language evolved, a city expanded and shrank, or the role of an attaar changed, from Shahjahan’s time to Bahadur Shah Zafar’s?If you like history, you’ll almost certainly enjoy the experience.

Here are some photos from the walk. And, for those who missed this one: take heart. Swapna’s agreed, on public demand, to do an encore, possibly in January 2012. We’ll keep you posted.

 (Note: Click on each image to see a larger version, and to learn more about what the photo shows).

                          

I’ve been on dozens of heritage walks led by Swapna. Walks for Habitat World (at the India Habitat Centre); for the Delhi Chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH); even informal exploratory expeditions through the maze of bylanes and necessarily-single-file alleys of Shahjahanabad. What I love about Swapna’s style is that she knows a lot, and she knows how to tell it like a story – with delightful anecdotes, interesting facts, and little tidbits that help bring history alive. So of course, when Swapna suggested a Muzaffar Jang walk, I jumped at the offer.

Here it is.

On December 11, 2011, at 08.30 AM, the Muzaffar Jang Walk. It’s being organised jointly by Habitat World and Hachette India, and Swapna will be leading the walk. She’ll be talking about Shahjahanabad, of course, but with a special emphasis on buildings, areas, even other little details that feature in the two Muzaffar Jang books, The Englishman’s Cameo and The Eighth Guest. And no, it won’t be just the predictable Red Fort and Jama Masjid.

So come along for the walk. It begins at the Jain Digamber Lal Mandir (at the end of Chandni Chowk, opposite the Lahore Gate of the Red Fort. The walk begins at 08.30 AM. Please register with the Programmes Desk at Habitat World by phoning 011-4366-3080/90. Places are very limited, so register as soon as you can.

See you there!

                          

The first, by film-maker, writer and blogger Batul Mukhtiar:

“… For anyone who is fascinated by Mughal monuments, clothes, way of life, these detective stories are a pleasure to read…

They take the slightly familiar, what we have known through history books, old ruins and old films (not always accurate) and makes it a little more familiar. Yet the details are not overwhelming or romanticized. They remain part of the stories, and this is where Madhulika’s success most lies. She lends a contemporary voice to an old world. You forget the 2000′s for a while and are back in 1656, the time of Shahjahan’s reign with Muzaffar Jang.

Madhulika’s blog has for a while been one of my favorites. I can only wish that she is as prolific with her Muzaffar Jang stories, because they are books which one will pick up again and again, simply, yet competently written and delightful.”

Read the rest of Batul’s review here.

And another review, by Urvashi Bahuguna, in the online magazine Helter Skelter:

“… It’s obvious that Liddle’s book has painstakingly been put together, with attention to historical and aesthetic detail. The world she brings back to life has never failed to fascinate, and Muzaffar Jang’s adventures are just another way to decode the Mughals, i.e., through the trouble they tend to land themselves in…”

Read the rest of the review here.

                          

Here it is, in normal resolution:

And in high definition:

Enjoy!

Buy the book online at: Landmark | Flipkart | Crossword | IndiaPlaza

                          

Muzaffar Jang features again, in this series of mystery stories, nearly all of them set in Shahjahanabad, the Dilli of Shahjahan’s last years as the Mughal Emperor. As the blurb on the back of the book puts it:

“It is the year 1656. Muzaffar Jang, that rare creature in Shahjahan’s Dilli, an aristocrat with friends in low places, is recovering from injuries sustained during his recent adventures involving two mysterious Englishmen and some reprehensible activities against the Imperial Exchequer.

Muzaffar’s bruised shoulder has yet to heal when he finds himself catapulted into a series of mysteries: An elephant in the Royal Elephant Stables goes berserk and kills its mahout – or does it? A scholarly nobleman – but, oh, such a pompous bore – is left a very puzzling legacy by his father. An artist at the imperial atelier is found murdered next to one of his works.

Muzaffar must pit his wits against treacherous noblemen and scheming traders, greedy villagers and lovelorn men – and women.

But who knows? Before the year is out, Muzaffar may just meet his match…”

I am especially fond of writing short stories, so this collection is one I’ve particularly enjoyed putting together – and they’re stories I hope you will like. The book will be formally released in Delhi, at the India Habitat Centre, on August 19, 2011 – but you can pre-order now on any of these online bookstores:

Landmark | Flipkart | Crossword | IndiaPlaza

And yes, there’s even an early review already published, on this blog.

Enjoy!

                          

Though most people know me as the creator of Muzaffar Jang, the Mughal detective, here I’ve ventured into territory I’ve never traversed before. The editor at the Brunch Quarterly said, “Could you please write another historical detective story for us?”, but since the word limit was 3,000 – a little difficult to fit detection into, at least for me – I decided to make this a somewhat different story. No sleuthing. No Mughal India. But, yes; it’s still not contemporary – it’s set in the Calcutta of the very late 19th century, and it involves, if not a crime, at least something not very nice.

An excerpt from the story, which is named Mangoes and Indigo:

Oscar Leadbetter, after two months on board ship, followed by a cross-country journey from Bombay to Calcutta, was ushered into his cousin’s presence by a turbaned servant. The man, his white muslin jama swishing about pyjama-clad knees, bowed out. Oscar stood before the vast mango-wood desk behind which his cousin sat. Stephen’s drooping moustache and thinning hair were blond, his icy blue eyes the gift of some long-ago Nordic ancestor. He turned that frosty gaze on Oscar.

‘I have had to get rid of my last secretary to accommodate you,’ he said. There had been no invitation for Oscar to sit, no ‘Koi hai?!’ yelled to a servant for whisky.

Oscar murmured something about trying his best, and was treated to a cold stare before Stephen began listing his duties. They were many, and varied. Oscar would receive and segregate correspondence.  He would write suitable responses. He would keep the accounts for the house. He would be in charge of making large purchases – not the meat and vegetables, or the dhobi’s lye, but the substantial ones. Furniture, for instance, or mattresses.

‘Do you expect them to wear out every few months?’ Oscar asked.

Note: Although you can read Hindustan Times online, Brunch Quarterly is in the form of a magazine, available at most large newsstands. Pick up a copy and read for yourself!