The crumbling city

Book review of A Shadow of the Past: A Short Biography of Lucknow

A wistfulness pervades Mehru Jaffer’s A Shadow of the Past: A Short Biography of Lucknow  like the gentle purvaiya breeze, a gift of the Gomti river, known to inspire many a poet. Unlike nostalgia, which can turn a narrative into hazy, soft-focus frames, Ms Jaffer’s explorations of memory, recorded history and conversations with friends sharpens images of the past; her yearnings for a city that once was, heighten its colours and textures.

A Shadow of the Past  bustles with the arrival of trade boats along the banks of the Gomti; it tells of monarchs who rebuild provincial Lucknow into a