India, Nov. 13 -- How do you make sense of the death of a beloved partner? How do you think of someone who taught you to "treat herbs with respect" long after their death? How do you make sense of having two of those closest to you be snatched away in the span of a weekend? That is partly what Vidya Krishnan's White Lilies: An Essay on Grief is about. In 2013, Krishnan's grandmother died. Later, her partner, Ali, died in a road accident. In remembering the latter, she chooses to begin the book with the city that so cruelly makes everyone feel at once loved and unwelcome, at home and homeless - Delhi.

"If Kolkata is the City of Joy, Delhi undoubtedly has to be the City of Grief," she writes. She chooses to describe Delhi as female and doc...