City Landmark – Blue Wall, Roshan Pura Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - June 16, 2021June 16, 20210 The Roshan Pura blues. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] This blue can never be perfectly rendered in a photograph. The shade is that fragile. This afternoon, as you stand in front of it, the colour seems to be evaporating into the sweltering air. You come back on the same spot after a few minutes; the blue hasn’t gone after all. One is ceaselessly called upon to experience a new restaurant, or an old monument that nobody cares about. So it’s natural to be doubtful about a recommendation that wants you to come all the way to Gurgaon’s Roshan Pura in the Greater Delhi Region, just to stare at some colour that must have been painted in some other lifetime, on a
City Walk – Post-Lockdown Lodhi Road, Central Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - June 15, 2021June 15, 20210 Notes from a pandemic-era stroll. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Two masked men are sitting on the dusty footpath, by the traffic light, with sketch pads on their laps. They are drawing Safdarjung’s Tomb, standing just across the road. It is a hot evening in the early post-lockdown, and traffic is still scarce. One has grown so used to seeing Delhi roads mostly empty, only peopled with those who really need to be out, that it is surreal to come across these sketchers. These days, a walk through Lodhi Road seamlessly marries the extraordinary beauty of the long tree-lined avenue with the eerie ambiance of Delhi’s currently absent outdoor life, and produces something truly haunting. Further ahead, three fat buffaloes
City Landmark – Udhmi Ram’s Shoe Repair Stall, Green Park Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - June 15, 2021June 15, 20210 A longtime destination. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is back. As the lockdown eases, shoe repairman Udhmi Ram has returned to his pavement stall in Green Park Market. “I’m opening after one whole month,” he says, sitting amid the numerous major and minor elements that make up his establishment. There are polishes of many shades, a metallic shoe stand, a bunch of laces hanging from a nail hammered on the pavement wall, a rusty trunk filled with old shoes and sandals, and a great deal of other tools. There’s a pink plastic rose, too. The stall might seem ordinary to a hurried passerby but that would be a mistake. Green Park Market has filled up in the recent years with retail
Mission Delhi – Namita Gokhale, South Delhi Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - June 12, 2021June 12, 20210 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] She is an acclaimed author and lit-fest director, with successful daughters, a frank disposition and a comfortable book-filled home in south Delhi—seemingly uniting some of the best blessings of existence. Her timeless beauty and gracious manners are complemented by a heart-winning smile and grey hair. The last bit is new. For all these years, Delhi society has known Namita Gokhale with brown hair. “I stopped colouring them since last year’s lockdown,” she reveals, referring to the pandemic-driven closure when almost every place shut down for weeks. Ms Gokhale visited the salon only twice, for haircut, in these months of the pandemic. “I’m 65, and was ready to go
City Monument – Sabz Burj, Mathura Road Monuments by The Delhi Walla - June 10, 2021June 10, 20210 A ruin restored. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s not even cerulean. It actually is somewhere between turquoise and lapis. These tiles on the dome of the centuries-old Sabz Burj are looking as fresh as the morning dew. So are the multicoloured patterns on the neck of the dome. Sabz Burj’s conservation is finishing this month. The project began four years ago by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in partnership with Havells India. In the custodianship of the Archaeological Survey of India, the 16th century tomb remains one of Delhi’s most mysterious souvenirs. Who built it for whom? We don’t know yet. The grave is missing. Older than
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Henri Cole, Boston Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - June 8, 2021June 9, 20210 The parlour confession. [By Mayank Austen Soofi; photo courtesy (unless specified otherwise)--Henri Cole] One of the great living poets working today, Henri Cole is the author of many poetry collections. His most recent book, Blizzard: Poems, was published in 2020. In his 60s, Mr Cole generously gives a vivid glimpse of his intimate world through photos--his twitter timeline at @ColeHenri is a must-read. According to the Poetry Foundation website, he has served as the executive director of the Academy of American Poets, and was poetry editor of the New Republic. He has taught at Ohio State University, Harvard University, and Yale University. He lives in Boston and teaches at Claremont McKenna College. His poems have been translated into several languages, including into
Mission Delhi – Shailesh Kumar, Central Delhi Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - June 8, 20210 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is sitting beside his packets of masks. His masked face is plopped on his knees, as if he were trying to escape from the world around him. “How can I be happy?” asks Shailesh Kumar, a hawker of face masks, here in a central Delhi lane. He talks of press photographers and TV cameramen directing their cameras at him as he and other fellow men queue up to get free food from charity organisations. “They show us as beggars... we are not beggars, but these times have made us helpless.” He is referring to the pandemic and the consequent lockdown. Mr Kumar originally used to sell “school
City Hangout – Secretive Garden, Outer Ring Road Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - June 7, 20210 A place for the invisibles. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Quietness is the reigning monarch here. Greenery is entwined with solitude. Squirrels are frolicking about. Marooned in isolation, this secretive tree-filled place feels detached from all the news of the world. But gradually you notice them, the people, looking like an extension of the patchy grass they’re lying on, here and there. This expanse runs for a brief distance along the Outer Ring Road, just outside the Vir Bhoomi memorial of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, here in central Delhi. It is arguably among the most surreal garden-spaces in the capital. This afternoon at least the place is shedding vibes of utter remoteness—although it is right in the city’s heart, close to
Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Isha Ahuja’s Poem on Post-Recovery, Janak Puri City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - June 5, 20210 Poetry in the city. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Her life is returning to some sort of normalcy, but the recent days were a nightmare. In April her “Nanaji” was lying terminally ill with cancer. The whole extended family was attending to him. As soon as the end came, another crisis started—everyone got covid. This must have been too much for somebody so young to process. Isha Ahuja is 23. “The worst part was that we couldn’t undertake easily even the everyday tasks, like waking up and making a cup of tea,” she says, talking on Whatsapp video from her home in west Delhi’s Janakpuri. A literature student in Jamia Millia Islamia University, Ms Ahuja’s study is lined with black-spined Penguin Classics. By now,
Mission Delhi – Sant Ram, Jangpura Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - June 3, 2021June 3, 20210 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Seasons dominate his life. This is in the nature of his occupation, which depends on the month of the year. It’s early June and hawker Sant Ram is carrying purple jamuns on a straw basket perched upon his head. Many avenues of New Delhi are lined with jamun trees, and jamuns have already started falling on the ground with their distinctive thud, making the earth purple, and slippery for pedestrians. But Mr Ram’s jamuns aren’t from Delhi, he says categorically, here in central Delhi’s Jangpura. “Yes, jamuns have started growing but it’s still early in the season, and the ones you see in Delhi trees are very sour.”