Sublime

Only one member of the family did Ommaney instantly dislike. This was Zinat Mahal’s beloved son, Mirza Jawan Bakht. Spoiled and callous, Jawan Bakht soon proved himself more than willing to give evidence about any of his family’s activities during the Uprising.

“He possesses in my opinion, not the slightest spark of honour and affection, according to English ideas of those qualities.”

the original Companions of the Prophet recast as sex-crazed purveyors of snuff films whom even Rushdie’s satirical genius could not have imagined.

refulgent

“Never fear Mister Barter sir, we ain’t agoing to turn.” And on they went quietly closing up the gap made by their fallen comrades.

harangued

Yet now, at the moment of the most crucial decision Zafar would ever take, with most of the Delhi elite already instinctively lined up against the looting, mutinous sepoys, Zafar made an uncharacteristically decisive choice: he gave them his blessing. The reason is not hard to guess. With the armed, threatening and excitable sepoys surrounding him

Others kept up their spirits by dreaming of the riches of Delhi spread out below them, hoping to pick up “a nice little diamond or two” from the “rich old niggers.”

For the people of Delhi, the daily reality of what happened in 1857 was not so much liberation as violence, uncertainty and starvation. Indeed, reading through the Mutiny Papers there are times when it seems almost as if the siege of Delhi had become a three-cornered contest, with the sepoys and the British fighting it out, and with the people in D