Book excerpt: In The Forgotten Cities of Delhi, book two of the Where Stones Speak trilogy covers historical trails in Siri, Jahanpanah, Tughlaqabad, Firozabad, Din Panah, Shergarh and Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti.In her trademark style, Rana Safvi combines narrative history with Sufi couplets and takes you on a walk across the first city of Mehrauli and Firozabad. This period was a major step towards integration of two distinct cultures towards a culture called Indo-Islamic by many historians. In the latter half of this volume, she tells us stories from an area and an era that's perhaps the richest in Delhi's archaeological history - Shahjahanabad and Firozabad on one end, and Jahanpanah and Siri on the other - a stretch that's today dotted with tombs, dargahs and the ruins of the Purana Qila. This area also houses the famous Humayun's tomb and the center of Delhi's spiritual trail: the Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah.