‘An intriguing, intimate read—gentle on the surface, devastating underneath.’
—Muzaffar Ali
‘A masterclass on the supernatural.’
—Namita Gokhale
When the lamps go out, Lucknow becomes another city.
In Lucknow, after the Lamps Go Out: Tales of Ghosts and Jinns, Parveen Talha gathers stories that move through the old quarters, ruined buildings, graveyards, railway platforms and forgotten houses of the City of Nawabs—stories of spirits, apparitions, unexplained visitations and jinns whose presence lingers just beyond the visible world.
These are not conventional horror stories. They are tales steeped in Lucknow’s history, tehzeeb, memory and loss. The city’s past—especially the violence, grief and dislocation surrounding 1857—presses constantly against the present, giving rise to legends attached to places such as the Residency, Begum Kothi, La Martiniere, Firangi Mahal, Aminabad and Malhaur station.
Moving between folklore, faith and lived recollection, the book evokes a Lucknow where the dead are not always gone, where jinns may intervene in human lives, and where memory survives in eerie, intimate forms.
