Sergey Moskalev. "A Disappearance in Old Delhi"

In 1899 a young man — a Russian of Astrakhan Indian descent — sets out for Delhi after finishing the Lazarev Institute. His aim is to trace a relative, a court poet who vanished mysteriously in Old Delhi twenty years earlier. In the heart of that ancient city he gathers scattered evidence: fragments of memory, half-effaced records, the accounts of local people. Each glimmer of understanding is another piece of a mosaic leading him towards the truth. His search brings him to physicians, perfumers, musicians, poets and mystics — enigmatic people, secrets of the past, and the shadows of events that weave him into the pattern of other lives. Yet the journey is not only a search for a vanished poet. It becomes a road towards his own roots, and a deeper understanding of family, history and culture. Step by step he closes on the answer, not knowing that what waits at the end is not only the truth, but one more trial.