City Hangout – The Book Hub, Batla House Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - September 21, 20222 Shop of used books [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The tiny basement room is crammed with just too many writers. A perfect place for bookworms to burrow into the delicious smells of musty well-thumbed pages. The Book Hub is the only oasis in a bookless desert. For this is a pin code with no other bookstores—south Delhi’s Batla House. Hidden within the bowels of the drab, dusty Chowdhury Complex, every inch of the shop is crammed with towers of used paperbacks. There is no method in the layout of the genres—there is no layout! Anything can be spotted anywhere. The unpredictability of the titles sends the mind to a dizzying joyride. Toss a glance at any direction, and your prejudiced
City Walk – Kucha Neelkanth, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - September 19, 20220 The place of the blue-throated [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] At the time of the churning of the Ocean of Milk, the giant serpent Vasuki — who was being used as a rope, the mountain Mandara being the churn itself — upchucked poison. Bhagwan Shiv drank the venom to save the worlds, but the appalled Devi Parvati, temporarily forgetting the divinity of her husband, held his throat so that the poison would not descend. His throat (kanth in Sanskrit) turned blue (neel). This is why Bhagwan Shiv is also known as Neelkanth. And Old Delhi’s Kucha Neelkanth has its own Shiv Mandir — it is small and cozy, having the intimacy of a household prayer room. A sacred shivling
City Food – Kulhar Chai, Juhi’s Tea Food by The Delhi Walla - September 17, 20220 Tea while lounging. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Poor Paris. That city has many sidewalk cafés, with awnings sheltering the patrons from rain and sunshine. But not one serving chai in earthen kulhar. Delhi, be proud. Here’s a similar sidewalk destination serving exactly that. Juhi’s Tea at the Community Center in New Friends Colony has to be that rare (and unpretentious) site in the capital that has the character of a Europe-style café, without it trying to be so. Tables are laid out on the pave, and a green awning keeps away the smoggy sky. Also, if kulhar chai isn’t your scene, there’s a range of other refreshing drinks (try gur ki chai!). This afternoon, a breeze is blowing through the long
Mission Delhi – Rashmi Gautam, South Delhi Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - September 15, 2022September 16, 20220 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] She approaches the passerby with cool composed confidence. He looks hassled. Her face all smiles, she shows him a pamphlet-like thing she is holding in her hands, and makes her arguments. Her arms moves in concurrence with the flow of her sentences. Rashmi Gautam persuades distracted shoppers to make online donations to an UN organisation’s child health projects. It’s late afternoon, and she has been in this south Delhi shopping plaza since morning. “My work is to talk to people,” she says cheerily. In her early 20s, Rashmi left her Bihar town Begusarai three years ago to realise her “dream” of becoming a business woman. “This
City Food – Kallan Bawarchi, Matia Mahal Food by The Delhi Walla - September 14, 20220 Landmark kitchen. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The potbellied cauldrons. The long metal ladles. The platters with chopped green chillies. The smoke-blackened walls. Air smelling of elaichi, laung, mirchi, pyaz, adrak, lehsun. Here is the timeless world of Kallan Bawarchi. This kitchen, or bawarchi khana, in Old Delhi appears to be as old as Red Fort. But no. Its founder Haji Kallan, aka Kallan Bawarchi, is very much a part of our living history. “He died just 15 years ago,” says Muhammed Asad. Aged 40, he flicks out the mobile phone from his shirt pocket, and shows a scanned photo of his pioneering grandfather. The Walled City is speckled with bawarchi khanas specialising in elaborate dawats (meals) for special ceremonies like
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Labourer Salman Abbas, Around Town Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - September 14, 20220 The parlour confession. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Salman Abbas’s day is full of physically exhausting work. In between assignments, the young labourer lies down on the long wooden bench of his employer’s warehouse in central Delhi, and instantly falls into deep sleep, he says. This afternoon, after waking up from one such nap, he gamely agrees to become a part of the Proust Questionnaire series in which citizens are nudged to make “Parisian parlour confessions”, all to explore our distinct experiences. Your favorite virtue or the principal aspect of your personality. Mehnat (hard work), lagan (dedication). Your favorite qualities in a man. Insaniyat (humanity). Your favorite qualities in a woman. Ability to give love. What do you appreciate the most in your friends? That I can use them in
City Food – Hello to the Queen, Paharganj Food by The Delhi Walla - September 12, 20220 Homage to the Queen. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The queen died. Nobody can say with certainty if Hello to the Queen was named after her. Even so, treating yourself to this unusual dessert would have been one of the more original ways to commemorate Elizabeth II’s place in our living history. In the pre-pandemic era, Hello to the Queen was found only at one place in the Delhi region—the ground-floor café in Ajay Guest House, in the backpackers’ bowels of Paharganj. Since the first lockdown in 2020, the Brown Bread Bakery remained closed for months and months, reopening in April this year. It serves only for a limited hours, and only essentials such as coffee and toast. Back
City Food – Panditji Doodhwale, Near Galli Sooiwallan Street Food by The Delhi Walla - September 10, 20220 Milky way. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The peepal tree in Old Delhi’s Tiraha Behram Khan oozes out vibes of steadfast reassurance. So much is changing so furiously, but it continues to stand at its appointed place, like a loyal friend. So is the sight of milkman Pandit Rajiv Sharma. There he is in his white kurta pajama, silent and patient as always, sitting cross-legged on his shop counter, his figure perched between a giant milk cauldron and a stack of dahi platters. Panditji Doodhwale near Galli Sooiwallan was founded by a Ferozabad native in 1945. Late Radha Krishna Sharma was briefly a hired hand in a Chandni Chowk dairy, says son Rajiv, aka panditji, aka uncleji. Narrating the progression of
Mission Delhi – Rashika, Redeveloped Central Vista Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - September 10, 2022September 10, 20220 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] So frustrating. Little Rashika is always ready to break into a dance, she has her own YouTube channel, after all. But here, she is as frozen as a statue. “Come on Rashika, do one step please beside India Gate,” urges mom Manju Gautam, a “tuition teacher” teach who gives lessons in political science to graduate students. Rashika refuses to budge. Snuggled in the baby stroller, her younger brother Viraat, in extraordinarily spunky blue-rimmed glasses, sees this as an opportunity to gather all the limelight. The family has been in the spanking new Central Vista for an hour, and is not minding the afternoon heat. “We are primarily here
City Hangout – Pond-Side Trees, Redeveloped Central Vista Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - September 10, 2022September 10, 20220 First day in the new Central Vista. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] These don’t look like happy trees. Sad and despairing, they in fact remind one of Ophelia, the grief-stricken heroine in Shakespeare’s Hamlet who dies by drowning. Indeed, many of the trees at the Central Vista grounds stranded between Janpath Road and Rastrapati Bhawan have their branches partially dipped in the pond. They have been in this state from before the redevelopment. No one’s here to note the sorrowful beauty of the droopy trees. Even though the new stone bridge here is a perfect vantage point to cherish them, especially at this moment as the sun is beginning to set, its gold light is sprinkling into the pond waters. Earlier the