Mission Delhi – Nalini Kant Pathak, Vasant Vihar Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - February 10, 2013February 21, 20135 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Savoring the easy sunlight of a fading winter, he says, “I’m not a regular to this garden. Today is my off from the office and I came here... just to sit and... and to think... actually to think of nothing.” The Delhi Walla meets Nalini Kant Pathak, 46, at one corner of the Delhi Development Authority Park in South Delhi’s Vasant Vihar. It has a few trees, a jogging track, and a ruin. Mr Pathak is alone on a bench; its green paint has peeled off to reveal earlier layers of yellow and red. “I work in the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation). I was recruited by the agency
Guest Column – The Female Monologue, Old Delhi General by The Delhi Walla - February 8, 2013February 8, 20131 The incomplete stories of a Delhi walli. [Text and (no photos) by Manika Dhama] I once asked my mother what she would like to do in life if she could do anything in the world and she said, “I’d love to travel, without a care in the world, discovering something new behind the bend, perhaps like the Delhiwalla.” And then we sighed knowing well enough that for us the answer to that question lay within boundaries. As I go about living, working, reading, shopping in Delhi, I’m constantly made aware of the limitations on my existence and being forced in by my own city and the place I call home. But like every other day over the last seventeen years, I wake up
City Hangout – The Subways, Connaught Place Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - February 6, 2013February 6, 20131 The Delhi underworld. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Omwati sweeps the place. Anil sells guavas and apples. Dinesh Kumar hawks mobile phone covers and chargers. Baneshwar Sahu keeps application forms for passport and PAN (permanent account number) card. Manoj Kumar has a collection of ties, with dozens of them in different shades of red. Raju sits behind his pile of gloves, socks and monkey caps. The rest of the people are a blur of legs, arms and conversations. Connecting the two sides of Kasturba Gandhi Marg (KG Marg) is a pedestrian corridor, one of the six underground pedestrian passageways in central Delhi’s Colonial-era Connaught Place — it is also the liveliest. The rest of the subways, all on the Outer
City Reading – The Delhi Proustians XXXVII, New Delhi Rail Station Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - February 4, 2013April 17, 20132 A la recherche du temps perdu. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Today is the 37th meeting of The Delhi Proustians, a club for Delhiwallas that discusses French novelist Marcel Proust. Every Monday evening for an hour we read his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, a multi-volume novel sometimes also known as Remembrance of Things Past. Each week we meet in a new venue to dive into the atmosphere of Marcel’s novel. It is 7 pm and The Delhi Walla is in New Delhi railway station, platform number one. But why did I chose this location to read Proust? This week I got a mail. The sender who gave me her permission to share its contents with you wishes to remain anonymous. Monsieur
City Monument – Dr Ambedkar National Memorial, Alipur Road Monuments by The Delhi Walla - February 2, 2013February 3, 20134 The touchable god. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] There is no one here other than The Delhi Walla. This is the memorial of Bhimrao Ambedkar, the principal architect of the Indian constitution and a leader who championed for the rights of Dalits, the low-caste groups once known as untouchables, but now officially referred to as Other Backward Castes (OBCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs). Spread over three acres, this place in 26, Alipur Road, North Delhi, was the last home of Ambedkar -- he died in 1956. Close to Delhi University, the house belonged to the rajah of Sirohi (Rajasthan) and was later purchased by an industrialist who demolished the building to make a new bungalow. It was acquired
Mid Day Review – On Nobody Can Love You More The Delhi Walla books by The Delhi Walla - February 1, 2013February 1, 20131 Life in the red light. [By Rito Paul] Rito Paul of the Bombay-based Mid Day newspaper talked about Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi’s Red Light District, a book by The Delhi Walla. Click here to read it on the newspaper’s website, or see below. There is no authoritative explanation for the origin of the term ‘red light district’. It still lies shrouded in apocrypha and rumours, much like its inhabitants. Some mark the Red Light House saloon, an apparently famous brothel in the old American West, as the point of origin. Others speak of American rail-road workers who would allegedly hang their red lanterns on the windows of the brothels they frequented. Which, if any, of the explanations is correct, is