Adieu RVS: Tributes pour in for city chronicler, raconteur R V Smith

To say that R V Smith knew the winding lanes, bylanes and little-known monuments of Delhi like the back of his hand, won't be an exaggeration.

The Agra-born octogenarian, who started his career as a journalist in mid-1950s, devoted his life later to chronicle the heritage facets of the city, and collect tales untold.

"He was able to relate broken domes, ruins, mausoleums to an era or period, and had an access to histories -- private and family -- of Anglo-Indians that most people didn't," city-based historian Sohail Hashmi told PTI.

Hashmi, who has been an avid reader of Smith's columns in The Hindu, said "he was in love with Delhi".

"He was not the 'pucca' Delhiwallah as he was born in Agra, but like poets Mir Taqi Mir and Ghalib, he too was in love with the city. Smith, like a tramp, had walked all streets, nooks and crannies of Delhi," he recalled.

Noted author and columnist and famed chronicler of Delhi, Ronald Vivian Smith, better known as R V Smith, and best known for his writings on Delhi, breathed his last at a hospital here on Thursday. He was 81.

In his book, 'The Delhi That No-one Knows', he described his experience of chronicling: "I did not refer to any nook, did not make notes from dusty volumes in old libraries - I just walked."