Twilight in Delhi - Opening

PART I

The night is dark, the waves rise mounatain high,

And such a storm is raging!

What do the pedestrians know of my plight moving

Upon the shore that's safe and dry?

HAFIZ

1

NIGHT envelops the city, covering it like a blanket. In the dim starlight roofs and houses and by-lanes lie asleep, wrapped in a restless slumber, breathing heavily as the heat becomes oppressive or shoots through the body like pain. In the courtyards, on the roofs, in the by-lanes, on the roads, men sleep on bare beds, half naked, tired after the sore day's labour.

To Laurence Brander

and

the memory of my parents

Copyright 1940, 1966, 1984, 1991, 1994 by Ahmed Ali

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

First published by the Hogarth Press, London, 1940

First published as New Directions Paperbook 782 in 1994.

Manufactured in the United States of America

New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper

Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited

New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

by New Directions Publishing Corporation,

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