City Hangout – Poetry Racks, Fact & Fiction and Others Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - February 21, 2015February 21, 20151 [Verse corners] [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The world is dense with prose; it is not easy to find poetry in our tweeting lives. Fortunately, Delhi continues to have a few places where you can shop for verses. Some of the brick-and-mortar book stores are poetically-inclined enough to dedicate at least a little corner to poems. Such stores are few, rare and precious, distinguished by the fact that their owners are willing to go the extra mile to build their collection. Every visit there offers a surprise. The best poetry corner in Delhi is to be found at the Fact & Fiction book store in south Delhi’s Basant Lok Market. A tall, dark-wood rack has nine shelves. On a recent
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Tanushree Ghosh, No Man’s Land Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - February 21, 2015February 22, 20153 The 17th death. [Text by Tanushree Ghosh; photo by Pritha Chakrabarty] A happy-go-lucky girl, Tanushree Ghosh dreamed of sliding down waterfalls; loved the smell of wet earth and of yellow pages of an old book; consumed the works of Woolf, Tolstoy, Marquez and Kundera; laughed while watching Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Andaz Apna Apna; cried in loneliness; slept to jazz, blues, ghazal and R.D. Burman’s music; dressed in a retro style; livened up to Kathak moves; but, most of all, lived to eat and died of excitement, every time a waiter approached her table with the much-awaited pork ribs and Goan sausage fry, and of gratification, at the taste of the first morsel. Ms Ghosh was a solitary reaper, harvesting the
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Siddhartha Gigoo, Mount Kaylasaa Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - February 20, 2015February 20, 20151 The 16th death. [Text by Siddhartha Gigoo; photo by Vinod Veerakumar] On a hot July day last year, Siddhartha Gigoo went to attend a concert by Dr Yama Reaper (Phd, D.Litt), the famous violinist from Naraka, who had come to perform for a select audience at Aakhrighata, a sanatorium on the foothills of the Mount Kaylasaa. It had been Mr Gigoo's dream to attend the maestro’s concert ever since he had started playing the flute. He didn’t have a ticket to the concert, yet he travelled, hoping to either gate crash or sit outside the gates of the sanatorium and listen to the music, in case he was denied entry by the guards. The maestro’s melodious renditions were known to make even
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Saumya Kulshreshtha, Vikaspuri Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - February 19, 2015February 20, 20152 The 15th death. [Text by Saumya Kulshreshtha; photo by Savi Garg] Saumya Kulshreshtha was a confident, but confused soul most of her life. She was at the heart of Delhi's art and culture scene, and it was poetry which she specifically located her cause in. Writing was second to breathing for her. She is remembered for having been queer enough to maintain a twice-a-day journal entry habit during her early and later years. Expressions, emotions and stories were the drugs that kept Ms Kulshreshtha going. In people she found stories more powerful than those that oozed out from the quills of famous writers. People were her gravitating point, and that was probably the reason why she kept organizing literary and poetic soirees
City Life – Delhi Lovers, Lodhi Gardens Culture Life by The Delhi Walla - February 19, 2015February 25, 20158 The geography of love. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some say that love’s a little boy. Some say it’s a bird. Some say it makes the world go round — so mused a long dead poet. In Delhi, he would have without doubt heard some say that love is Lodhi Gardens. On a weekday afternoon, the park’s long, circular jogging track is empty. So are the green benches. The expansive lawns seem abandoned. But love is everywhere — in mausoleums, under a bridge, on a rock. On the rampart of Sikander Lodi’s tomb too. The wall spans out in a series of recessed arches; each has a Juliet and her Romeo. There flashes a wooing arm, a soft kiss. Every move of
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Rakhshanda Jalil, Somewhere in Delhi Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - February 18, 2015February 18, 20154 The 14th death. [By Rakhshanda Jalil] The erstwhile noted writer Rakhshanda Jalil died late last night. Living the life of a recluse in straitened circumstances, not much was known about her last years. With over 20 books, innumerable newspaper articles, book reviews, academic papers etc., she inexplicably dropped out of public life. We do not know what stilled her pen and stopped her prolific output. In a literary career spanning twenty-odd years, Ms Jalil wrote voluminously and on a variety of subjects: literary criticism, literary histories, biographies of poets and writers, translations from Urdu and Hindi, as well as opinion pieces on culture and society. Twenty years after it was first published, Ms Jalil is best remembered for her seminal work on the
Atget’s Corner – 706-710, Delhi Photos Delhi Pics by The Delhi Walla - February 18, 2015February 18, 20150 The visible city. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi is a voyeur’s paradise and The Delhi Walla also makes pictures. I take photos of people, streets, flowers, eateries, drawing rooms, tombs, landscapes, buses, colleges, Sufi shrines, trees, animals, autos, libraries, birds, courtyards, kitchens and old buildings. My archive of more than 25,000 photos showcases Delhi’s ongoing evolution. Each day five randomly picked pictures from this collection will be put up on the pages of this website. The series is named in the memory of French artist Eugène Atget (1857-1927), who, in the words of a biographer, was an “obsessed photographer determined to document every corner of Paris before it disappeared under the assault of modern improvements.” Here are Delhi photos numbered 706 to 710. 706. Uttam Nagar 707.
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Shujaat Khan, Jaipur Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - February 17, 2015February 17, 20150 The 13th death. [Text by Shujaat Khan; photo by Yuvan] On a lazy winter afternoon of 12 January 2088, Shujat Khan shifted from his 1 BHK abode in Pratap Nagar, Jaipur, to his heavenly abode. Phew! At last, no more house shifting! His whole life had been a balancing act between the real and the surreal, till the weighing scale went… snap! Mr Khan’s soul is not resting in peace. It never did. Just gave up the shit. He strictly instructed his near and dear one (there is only one) against glorifying him ad nauseam. “A damn arrogant man, nevertheless a passionate lover,” says his girlfriend ‘abc’. That woman could never keep her trap shut. Mr Khan caved in to an abrupt asthmatic bout
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Sanchita Guha, Somewhere in the Himalayas Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - February 16, 20153 The 12th death. [Text by Sanchita Guha; photo by Deepali Guha] Sanchita Guha, a journalist by profession, both remarkable and unremarkable in many ways, was always a vocal opponent – at the risk of getting much flak – of the human tendency to cling to life despite age and infirmity. It had been her desire, as friends knew, to die when still young, still at the peak of physical and mental strength, somewhere far away from home, far away from the drama of grief that always follows the news that the inevitable was here. “Human life is a drop of water on a lotus leaf.” This line from a Bengali classic poem guided her goals. Ms Guha never deferred her travels, never waited
City Food – Honey Ginger Lemon Tea, Appetite German Bakery Food by The Delhi Walla - February 16, 2015February 16, 20152 The divine addiction. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This city of sweet milky chai has a place that makes this humble drink without the traditional ingredients, and it is still deliciously addictive. The Delhi Walla is talking of the Honey Ginger Lemon Tea at the Appetite German Bakery, which, owing to its location in the hotel district of Paharganj, teems with fascinatingly-clothed foreign backpackers. The drink is served in a plain glass, with a Tetley bag on the side plate. Initially, the liquid looks cloudy as if someone has dropped an aspirin into hot water – but that’s just freshly-squeezed lemon juice. Meanwhile, the pale-brown slivers of ginger are kept off from the bottom of the glass by a film of