City Home – Room no. 72, Gwyer Hall Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - October 16, 20260 Home sweet home. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Room no. 72 in a hostel in Delhi University’s North Campus has something many hostel rooms don’t. A fireplace. The building dates from British times, when fireplaces warmed rooms in winter and high ceilings cooled them in summer. This room has both. The hostel, Gwyer Hall, is named after a former Delhi University vice chancellor, and is the university’s oldest men’s hostel. The room is presently occupied by PhD student Sanjay Kataria. While the fireplace goes unused even during Delhi’s super-brief winter, Sanjay has given it other duties. Its mantel holds framed photographs of his beloved poet Jaun Eliya. Elsewhere, Mona Lisa smiles from a metal cupboard. The Mona Lisa magnet came from Belgium.
Lost Landmark – Appetite German Bakery Café , Paharganj Hangouts Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - October 16, 2026October 16, 20260 Paradise lost, or lost time regained. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] One long-ago afternoon, a woman in a Central Delhi café got up from her table and walked towards the bakery counter. She suddenly turned around and began moving her arms. “Look, I’m dancing,” she said, swaying her hips. See photo. The woman was Lilo Marina, from Australia. Just back from the Himalayas, she was travelling through India, she said, to seek something new in life. That was Appetite German Bakery café in Paharganj. This is the second instalment of our new series, Paradise Lost, chronicling Delhi’s vanished landmarks. Decades ago, Paharganj grew into a district of inexpensive backpacker-friendly hotels and hostels because it lay within walking distance of New Delhi railway station.
City Life – Family Photos, Old Delhi Life by The Delhi Walla - October 13, 20260 Precious archive. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The iron trunk had been lying unopened in their attic for decades, hidden amid suitcases and bags, when Arshad and Sheeba accidentally stumbled upon it last week. Inside were old photographs, some fading, a few slightly torn around the edges. It is a discovery within a home, but of some significance to the wider city outside. For the couple belong to Old Delhi’s Fehmi family, which used to publish the legendary journal Din Duniya. The photographs show people connected to the family, with the collection reaching back to Delhi’s early twentieth century. One photo bears the handwritten date “30-12-1937.” Among these many dozens of photographs, one shows a boy wearing a striped sherwani over wide-bottomed
City Life – CP in Times of Normalcy, Central Delhi Hangouts Life by The Delhi Walla - October 13, 20260 On Connaught Place surrealism. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Oh, the Regal cinema building! The world its passageway shelters! The softy stall named Everyone’s Happiness Place, the longtime burger outlet but now shut for months, the vendors hawking belts, handkerchiefs and sunglasses, the love birds walking hand in hand… the mere sight of the white building brings back these scenes. So familiar, so recognisable. So is the newly renovated Starbucks in A Block. Yet, in the Instagram reels of Saturday’s disturbances in Connaught Place, these landmarks seem to belong to another place, with security personnel and protesters gathered around them. Indeed, it is surreal to see places where we stop for a latte or wait for a friend suddenly appearing amid
City Walk – Katra Gokul Shah, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - October 13, 20260 The Walled City enyclopedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is five in the morning, and the sky is still black. A crescent moon is visible in the narrow wedge of sky between the house roofs. Lamplight is falling on the shutters, leaving stretches of the Old Delhi street in shadow. No crowd fills the silent passage at this hour. The houses are shut, the shops yet to open. Even so, the street feels crowded, being dense with wires, balconies and signboards. At the street’s mouth, where the street meets Matia Mahal Bazar, packets of double roti are heaped on a folding table. Behind it stands Aslam, a dweller of the street. He sells breakfast bread at this hour every day.
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Shiv Kumar, Ballabgarh Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - October 13, 2026October 13, 20261 Portrait of a citizen. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] This dusty afternoon, Shiv Kumar, a rickshaw puller, is waiting for customers outside a bus stand in Ballabgarh, Faridabad, in the National Capital Region. He graciously agrees to take part in our Proust Questionnaire series, in which citizens are nudged to make “Parisian parlour confessions”, all to explore our distinct experiences. The principal aspect of your personality? Do paise mehnat karke kamata hoon, aur shanti se ghar pe rehta hoon (I earn two paisa through hard work, and live peacefully at home). Through hard work, I have built my own house in Ballabgarh. It has three rooms. Your main fault? I have never done anything wrong. Not in my Bihar. Not here in Ballabgarh. I’m
Lost Landmark – Fact & Fiction Bookstore, Basant Lok Market Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - October 9, 2026October 9, 20260 Paradise lost, or lost time regained. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The bookseller is reading the print edition of The New York Review of Books. A rotating shelf in front of his cluttered desk holds fiction. Shelves at the back hold travel books, including rare editions of Dervla Murphy. Elizabeth Bishop and Cavafy, of course, sit in the poetry section, which requires another turn. Here in south Delhi’s Basant Lok Market, opposite Priya cinema, an afternoon passes among high-brow shelves. Except that this afternoon belongs to the past. The bookstore, whose name, Fact & Fiction, had a literary ring (like Washington, DC’s Politics and Prose), no longer exists. It begins our new series, Paradise Lost, chronicling Delhi’s vanished landmarks. To pass
Delhi Metro – Raja Nahar Singh (Ballabhgarh) Metro Station, Faridabad Delhi Metro by The Delhi Walla - October 9, 20260 Last points on earth. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Bunches of bananas are hanging at the patriotically named Indian Juice Corner, with ananas stacked beneath a sign for mango shake. Next door are the stalls of Bombay Famous Nagori Tea, Aggarwal Nasta Palace and Lucky Fast Food. Steps away, auto rickshaw drivers are hoarsely calling out for passengers to Neelam Chowk. Above them, the Metro tracks head towards Delhi. Such is the world outside Raja Nahar Singh (Ballabhgarh) station, in Faridabad in the National Capital Region. The Violet Line ends here. This is the second in our series on Delhi Metro’s last stops. Inside the station, waiting commuters stand in shade, silhouetted against the blinding daylight beyond the platform, where poles and
City Hangout – Roadside Park, Jantar Mantar Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - October 7, 20260 A city secret. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] This Monday evening, yellow police barricades stand beneath the trees beside Jantar Mantar, in Central Delhi. Men in blue camouflage linger by a banner warning against “any public gathering.” Khaki uniforms appear beyond the road’s barricade. Only a few people in civilian clothes are walking along the pavement linking the Jantar Mantar monument complex to the adjoining protest square. Here, almost unnoticed, is a public park. Its secretive entrance stands at a turning of the said pavement. A board identifies it simply as “NDMC Park”, displaying a map of paths and trees, though the place hardly seems large enough to need one. From outside, the park’s greenery could be taken for a roadside plantation.
City Hangout – Ghalib Museum, Ballimaran Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - October 7, 20260 Poet's bucket, and other things. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] A pink bucket stands on the museum floor. Above it, Mirza Ghalib’s verse sings of vegetation growing on his house’s walls. Beside the verse, a huge painting shows the poet writing and smoking. See photo. This is Ghalib’s last haveli, in Gali Qasim Jan, in Old Delhi’s Ballimaran. The poet died here in 1869. Much of the mansion disappeared through subsequent alterations. Its remains briefly housed a coal godown before a portion became a museum. Truth be told, this little place, the size of a badminton court, is among Delhi’s most eclectic museums. At first glance, it inspires no major expectations, seeming to contain only a handful of exhibits. Look around closely,