Away from the world.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

This may be the weirdest garden bench in all of Delhi.

Instead of facing the finery of flowers it faces a wall here in central Delhi’s Bhishma Pitamah Marg. The only saving grace is a frangipani tree lording over it.

Could this be an architect’s gaffe? Or perhaps a mistake by the workers when laying out the benches here?

You’ll probably never know. But actually sitting on this particular bench offers a strange sort of swagger. As though you’re making a statement to the world by turning your back on it. All you spot is the gray wall itself—beyond which lies the upper-crust Golf Links Colony.

Also hidden from this perch is the bronze statue of the poet Subramania Bharati which commandeers the very center of the paved court.
The more you stare at the wall itself, the more it becomes alive in your imagination. The fading paint marks and stains gradually are transformed into shapes of people and places already there in your subconscious: the way it can happen while gazing at clouds.

You’d ideally want to sit here with a novel or lover. Or perhaps totally alone, without even your mobile. So that literally and figuratively you’re snubbing the world and all it has to offer.

Aloof and self-contained

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