Talk - Adventures in a Megacity : A Connaught Place special May 4, 2009

Delhi : Adventures in a Megacity - A Connaught Place special. An illustrated talk by Sam Miller. Delhi is now one of the worlds largest cities, a teeming metropolis with a speed of population growth unmatched by the other megacities. Perhaps because its also the oldest of the worlds megacities, its modern development has been largely ignored. Former BBC correspondent Sam Miller in his best-selling book, Delhi : Adventures in a Megacity has attempted to redress this balance. Starting in Connaught Place , he walked through Delhi , spiraling outwards until he reached Gurgaon. His quest was not the ancient monuments and the imperial buildings but the unexpected, the ignored and the eccentric. These are the people of Delhi , the astrophysics professor, the ragpicker, the crematorium attendant, the members of the police band whose tales help creating this original and humorous description of Delhi . Sam Miller talks this evening about how he begun to tread the streets of Delhi , and about his first encounters in and around Connaught Place in which he makes some unexpected discoveries about the Metro station, the Regal Cinema, Jantar Mantar and encounters the phantom shit-squirter of CP. Sam studied History at Cambridge University and Politics at The School of Oriental and African Studies in London before joining the BBC's World Service. In the early nineties he was the World Service TV and radio correspondent in Delhi and on his return to the UK in 1993 was the presenter and editor off the BBC's current affairs programme South Asia Report. Later he became the head of the Urdu service and subsequently Managing Editor, South Asia . He has also worked as a reporter in Pakistan , Afghanistan , Bangladesh , the Balkans and Northern Ireland . Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity was published by Penguin in January 2009.

Official Website: http://www.buzzintown.com/?102415&ref=yupg&refcity=1