City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

by William Dalrymple

There were other changes, too. The damburst of western goods and ideas that were now pouring into India had brought with them an undertow of western morality. Adulterous couples now filled the public gardens; condom advertisements dominated the Delhi skyline. The Indian capital, once the last bastion of the chaperoned virgin, the double-locked bedroom and the arranged marriage, was slowly filling with lovers: whispering, blushing, occasionally holding hands, they loitered beneath flowering trees like figures from a miniature. Delhi was starting to unbutton. After the long Victorian twilight, the sari was beginning to slip.