Never engage in a long drawn out feud with a fellow writer, you will only end up wasting your most elegant put-downs and insults for free.

When the two czars of literary Delhi, Aatish Taseer and William Dalrymple exchanged barbed words recently in what is said to be one of Delhi's long-running battles — delighted readers were privy to some very elegant phrases free as the correspondence went viral due to leaks.