City Walla – Gali Devidas, Old Delhi General Walks by The Delhi Walla - March 30, 2025March 30, 20250 The Old Delhi street encyclopedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Once upon a time, more than a hundred years ago, a house came up in the Walled City. The house had a doorway. The doorway was unremarkable. Many such houses after all had such a doorway. And then time passed. The house witnessed deaths and births, even as elsewhere in the Walled City old houses gave way to the new. A few houses however continued to stand, many of them growing derelict, yet retaining traces of original grace. Gradually, more old houses disappeared. This house continues to stand to this day. You may view it in Old Delhi’s little-known Gali Devidas. Since many houses with such a doorway
City Monument – Sikander Lodhi’s Tomb, Lodhi Garden Monuments by The Delhi Walla - March 28, 2025March 28, 20250 Loner's corner. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] In such a crowded and noisy megapolis, a citizen naturally aspires for solitude and quietude. Lodhi Garden is just such a place to satisfy the yearning. But there’s a problem. Lodhi Garden teems with too many loners looking for aloneness. Not to speak of the mainstream populace— romantic couples, picnicking families, tourists, and heritage hunters—who raid the same flowery fields with other yearnings to satiate. Fret not, you loner. There is a place in Lodhi Garden that remains relatively empty, although it harbours a monument of considerable significance. It is the tomb of Sikander Lodhi, the second ruler of Delhi Sultanate’s Lodhi dynasty (1451–1526). The octagonal tomb is as stately as the tombs
City Life – Ramzan 2025, Chitli Qabar Chowk Life by The Delhi Walla - March 27, 2025March 27, 20250 Chitli's chandelier. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The small chandelier emits a faint glow. The many people walking along the streets aren’t looking up at it, nor at any of the other lamps. But the overhanging decorations at the market intersection are brightening the midnight. This is the latter half of the Muslim month of Ramzan, and the nights in some parts of Walled City have grown far livelier than the days, which are spent in abstaining from food. Despite the late hour, Old Delhi’s Chitli Qabar Chowk is kinetic with the sparkle of the ongoing season. Five years ago, the historic area was in a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. The customary bustle of the place had
City Hangouts – Baolis, Around Town Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - March 27, 2025March 27, 20250 Summertime refuge. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] This is in Delhi’s heart. The stairs go down under the ground, here in Connaught Place. Beneath—all is thanda, cool. It must be a baoli. One of those old stone wells with a stone staircase. Where the staircase descends deep towards the source of underground water, discreetly camouflaging the earth from the sky, keeping the interiors cool from the sweltering exteriors. It is actually Palika Bazar. The underground market dates from a time when Delhi had no shopping malls, and it was the city’s sole freely accessible public place that happened to be centrally air-conditioned. There, the Delhiwale—shopping types or not—would find solace and sakoon from the heatwaves. Indeed, centuries ago, baolis used to be
City Life – Nony Singh’s Painting, Vasant Vihar General Life by The Delhi Walla - March 26, 2025March 26, 20250 Traveling artwork. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Shy of revealing her age, 88-year-old Nony Singh remembers finishing Blue Painting “around the time of President Kennedy’s assassination.” The oil painting hangs in a balcony-facing corner of the artist’s residence in Vasant Vihar. Since Nony Singh doesn’t sell her work, all of it has always been in her possession. The Blue Painting is an exception, coloured with an unusual story. In the winter of 2021, one of Nony Singh’s four daughters received an e-mail from a stranger in England. It sparked off a correspondence—common friends were mentioned, long-ago events recalled. While the e-mails tell of the aforementioned artwork, they also unwittingly summon a sense of the era when people wrote polite letters,
City Walk – Chawri Bazar, Old Delhi Hangouts Life Walks by The Delhi Walla - March 22, 2025March 22, 20250 The Old Delhi street encyclopedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The market shops are shuttered, the main street is deserted, but the darkened corridors are filled with sleeping men. Some of the men are lying flat on mats unrolled along the floor, others are sprawled atop parked carts and rickshaws, their legs up due to lack of space. These are hundreds of labourers who live and work in Old Delhi’s Chawri Bazar. The market’s name is thought by some to have originated from a Marathi word for “meeting place.” Certainly in the old times, young men from noble families would come here to meet the Chawri Bazar courtesans. At some point the courtesans moved elsewhere, and Chawri was transformed
City Food – Burger Trolley, Connaught Place Food by The Delhi Walla - March 21, 2025March 21, 20251 An element of the city's street cuisine . [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Are they gone? The burger trolleys of Connaught Place (CP) would serve those among us who strive to find contentment in cheaply priced street cuisine. The metal carts were spread across the corridors and plazas of CP. They stocked burgers, but also patties, sandwiches, paneer kulche, “hot dog,” and cream-rolls. This weekday afternoon, despite making two rounds of the Inner and Outer Circle, not a single burger trolley is sighted in the entire CP. A typical burger trolley would be manned by its vendor, sometimes aided by a young “helper.” The all-vegetarian menu would be painted in red on the trolley’s lane-facing side. Some carts would be
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Ashok Kumar Malik, Sunday Book Bazar Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - March 20, 20250 Portrait of a citizen. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] With his long grey beard, the calmly book browser is resembling literary lions like Tolstoy and Tagore. Poet Ashok Kumar Malik is a faithful patron of Delhi’s Sunday Book Bazar, commuting almost every Sunday from his Ghaziabad residence to the market in Mahila Haat. This afternoon, he 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. The principal aspect of your personality. I’m continually absorbing and being absorbed by nature. Your idea of happiness. Happiness has to be redefined… I think it is more important to cultivate our sensitivity at the risk of ending up hurt or sad.
City Season – Leaf Shedding, Around Town Nature by The Delhi Walla - March 19, 20250 Leaving leaves. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The scene is full of descending motion expressing immense silence (like the snowfall in the Himalayas). A small crowd has gathered, wordlessly watching the surreal phenomenon, here in central Delhi, in a stone courtyard overlooking poet Ghalib’s tomb. Hundreds of leaves are drifting down from an enormous pilkhan tree, its branches spread super-wide. In the western world, the month of March is a time when new leaves appear on trees that were bare during the winter. In Delhi, the month of March is a time when scores of trees become bare, making a big show of letting go of their leaves. This is part of their annual strategy to survive the
City Faith – 688th Urs, Hazrat Chirag Dehlavi’s Dargah Faith by The Delhi Walla - March 18, 20252 A sufi shrine's special day. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] During the day, the marble courtyard stays sparse, serene, and silent. At night, it darkens, growing more silent. Tonight (March 18) will be an exception. The courtyard shall stay awake with crowds, bright lights, and musical qawwalis. The Sufi shrine of Hazrat Chirag Dehlavi is today celebrating the 688th urs, or death anniversary, of its saint--in Sufism, a mystic’s death is not mourned but celebrated, marking his union with the beloved, who is God. Despite its status as an important centre of Sufism, the dargah in south Delhi rarely draws throngs of pilgrims or tourists. Maybe because it is not easily approachable, ensconced beyond a dense warren of houses, shops,