City Nature – Tree Heroes, M-Block, Greater Kailash 2 Life Nature by The Delhi Walla - August 30, 2023August 30, 20231 Icons of a tree-lined road. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Rendered conscious by the camera, these three are standing stiffly under the long slant branch of a tree. Years ago, Dharamveer, Hasan, Azim, and a handful of others not seen in the photo, planted a dozen or so saplings on this road with no prior coordination. Those saplings have grown into gigantic trees. Dripping green with their dense foliage, the trees make a patchy roof of leaves along the tarmac, filling up the space underneath with shade, fresh air and coolness. This afternoon, a gentleman is snoozing under a peepal, while sprawled on a string cot. The short tree-lined road lies hidden behind M Block Market in Greater Kailash 2. It is
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Geetanjali Shree, Lodhi Garden Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - August 29, 2023August 29, 20230 The parlour confession. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] It is easy to bump into her. Hint: she is often sighted in Lodhi Garden (see photos). Geetanjali Shree, the author of five short story collections and five novels—Mai, Hamara Shahar Us Baras, Tirohit, Khālī Jagah and Ret Samadhi, the 2022 International Booker Prize winner—agrees to become a part of our Proust Questionnaire series in which citizens are nudged to make “Parisian parlour confessions”, all to explore our distinct experiences. These days she is finalising a “press copy” of Sah-sa, her sixth novel. The principal aspect of your personality. Absence of drama. Your favorite qualities in a man. Self-reflexivity, self-doubt, androgyny. Your favorite qualities in a woman. Determined, fun-loving, un-guilt-ridden. Your chief characteristic. Reserved. What do you appreciate the most in your friends? Straightforwardness and
City Hangout – Meraj Guest House, Ballimaran City Poetry Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - August 29, 2023August 29, 20230 An extraordinary lodging. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The staircase is ordinary. So is the ensuing corridor. Ditto the tiny reception. The best room is basic, a double bed with white sheets. No AC. Even so, this is one of the most unusual guesthouses in the entire Delhi region. No, it has to be among the most unique guesthouses in the whole world. Thanks to the way it shares an entrance with the residence of great poet Mirza Ghalib, here in Old Delhi’s Ballimaran. The story of Ghalib’s house that he had taken up on rent (2.5 anas per month) has become the stuff of legends. The poet spent the concluding stage of his life here, before dying in 1869. In our
City Walk – Asaf Ali Road, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - August 27, 2023August 27, 20230 Road by the vanished wall. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Like people, places grow, reach their pinnacle, and then decline. Something like Old Delhi’s Asaf Ali Road. Its cordon of grand buildings once housed la-di-da institutions. Today, modest offices, small warehouses, photocopying kiosks, and booths of notary typists operate out of those premises. The busy road flanks the south-facing side of the Walled City’s (far longer) vanished city wall. On the immediate other side of the disappeared wall runs Old Delhi’s Faseel Road, which principally survives in two fragments—already featured here and here. The Asaf Ali Road walk concludes the trilogy. Students of Delhi’s contemporary architecture will instantly fall in love with the road for its trove of early modernist buildings, many
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Ritu Ahuja, Somewhere in Delhi Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - August 27, 2023August 27, 20233 The parlour confession. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] This muggy evening in a public park, she is immersed in a Jonas Jonasson novel. A climate policy professional, Ritu Ahuja agrees to become a part of our Proust Questionnaire series in which citizens are nudged to make “Parisian parlour confessions”, all to explore our distinct experiences. Your favorite qualities in a man. Open mindedness, ability to respectfully disagree, honesty and kindness. Your favorite qualities in a woman. Supportive and enabler of other women, bravery. Your favorite occupation. Chef. Your idea of misery. To be subjected to violence, of any kind; to lose the people I love the most. If not yourself, who would you be? Gita Gopinath. Where would you like to live? Paris, Singapore, Bombay. Your favorite bird Crows. Adaptable, fearless. Your heroes/heroines in real life. -
Julia Child in Delhi – Colleagues wali Curry, Hazrat Nizamuddin East Food Julia Child's Delhi by The Delhi Walla - August 25, 2023September 3, 20230 Experiment with fish. [Text and picture by Mayank Austen Soofi] Rotis are ready, as well as the rice. Dinnertime is nearing. Eggs have been boiled and shelled. The small portion of yellow arhar dal is only for the two vegetarians. Meanwhile, the karahi containing the main dish of fish curry is still on the fire. It is around 8.30pm in the city’s affluent Hazrat Nizamuddin East. The men are preparing their night meal under the dim light of a solitary lamp. Labourers by profession, they are staying temporarily at this address as part of an assignment to lay the foundation of a new building. Their living quarter is right next to their work site. At this moment, the men are inside
City Food – Nadeem’s Cream Rolls, Sadar Bazar Food by The Delhi Walla - August 24, 2023August 24, 20231 Street rolls. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The stuff he hawks is rustled out in Ghaziabad, UP, and sold miles away in Gurugram, Haryana. The two places are bridged by the bulk of Delhi. According to Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), which will soon conduct a new census of street hawkers, there are as many as 500,000 vendors in the capital. Our protagonist is technically not among those, for he mostly works in Delhi’s satellite cities. But his everyday experiences cannot be profoundly different from his capital counterparts. Nadeem was spotted many seasons ago outside a lane of pickle shops in Gurugram’s Sadar Bazar. This afternoon, he is sighted not far from the aforementioned lane. He is holding that same,
Mission Delhi – Satender Kumar, Around Town Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - August 22, 2023August 22, 20230 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The young auto rickshaw driver is often homesick, but not intensely. May be because Satender Kumar’s roommates happen to be his close relatives. Some of them are from his village in Bihar, and others are from nearby villages. “There’s my chacha, there’s my jeeja, my two brothers, my phoofa ka ladka, and also my saadu.” By saadu, he means the brother-in-law of his wife, Pooja Kumari (a photo of hers is his phone screen’s wallpaper). This evening, Satender has parked his auto beside a bus stop, waiting for the day’s next “sawari.” He is killing the empty minutes by playing a Bhojpuri love song on his mobile; the phone
City Walk – Faseel Road Part 2, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - August 21, 2023August 21, 20230 Path by the wall. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some uncertainly say it exists. Most say it doesn’t. The Faseel Road signage is elusive. The road’s name does occasionally pop up on shop hoardings, but no dedicated signboard is to be seen. This is unfortunate, for every self-respecting Old Delhi street possesses a white Dilli Nagar Nigam signboard identifier, with the street’s name painted in blue. Faseel is ‘’fort wall’ in Persian, and Faseel Road—originally called Zayr-e-Faseel— ran along the historic quarter’s city wall, now mostly gone. Most of the road too has gone, existing in broken fragments. One substantial part lies between Turkman Gate and Dilli Gate— featured here. No dedicated Faseel signboard was sighted there. Faseel Road’s only other substantial
City Monument – Unnamed Mosque, Lodhi Garden Monuments by The Delhi Walla - August 18, 2023August 18, 20230 A little known exquisiteness. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One life isn’t enough to crack the megapolis of Delhi and its NCR cousins. The microscopic magnitude of a teenie weenie lane in Roshanpura will be enough to claim all the years. Lodhi Garden is a suitable microcosm for the National Capital Region. You may devote a hundred lifetimes to the park and you will still be scratching its surface. Too much going on here: the trees, the flowers, the lawns, the chai vendors crisscrossing those lawns all day long, the park’s many dogs (each has a name!), the birds, the rats, the butterflies, the benches, the ducks, the jogging tracks, the yoga groups, the reading societies, and of course the great