One of the one percent in 13 million.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Laila Tyabji, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, unites some of the best blessings of existence.

Oh well, how to hide it from you, dear all-knowing reader? The line above has been plagiarised from the famous opening of a famous Jane Austen novel. Except that the heroine’s name has been replaced by the name of Delhi’s no. 1 Jane Austenite. (Otherwise Jane Austen’s description fits our fellow citizen to a tee.)

This December marks Jane Austen’s 250th birth anniversary, and craft revivalist Laila Tyabji’s reading life effortlessly connects us to the world of the timeless English writer. Laila has been living with Jane Austen for 68 years. Her first encounter with the writer happened when she was 10. Since then she has been rereading all six of Jane Austen’s completed novels at least once every year.

This evening, the gentlewoman is ensconced in her living room in Shanti Niketan. Her red-brick residence resembles one of those homes you see in old pre-Netflix BBC adaptations of Jane Austen novels. Books everywhere; delicate fabrics and fluffy cushions lying casually upon beautiful chairs, and sofas. And then there is Laila’s collected Jane Austen hardback—bound in leather by Salim, Old Delhi’s legendary bookbinder who passed 15 years ago. Laila herself is so stylish that when she is called “so elegant!” by members of the Delhi high society, truth is not outraged as it usually is in the elite circles.

As aloo pakodis are served with homemade mango ice-cream, the hostess’s talking points touch upon the themes dear to a Jane Austen acolyte. The novelist’s skilled storytelling, her kamaal ka wit, her super-intelligent heroines, and their urgent search for a husband propelled by the unfair financial dependence inflicted upon them by societal conventions—plus the striking similarities between Jane Austen’s 19th century England and today’s Indian middle class.

The first Jane Austen that Laila read was Pride and Prejudice. It became her favourite Jane Austen book. Her partialities later shifted. Two years shy of turning 80, she is most in love with Jane Austen’s last completed novel.

Persuasion, really?! The saddest of all the Jane Austen novels. The one about an ageing heroine trying to find love long after her first blush of youth. The heroine does end up getting her man, unlike Laila, who lives without a man. She is single.

Laila’s lively eyes look livelier. “There is so much fun in an independent life,” she remarks. “In contrast, the idea of marriage seemed a little claustrophobic.” The lady notes that while each Jane Austen novel ends with its heroine’s marriage, Jane Austen remained single, and “seemed to have had a fulfilled life without a husband.”

With the sari pallu of her maroon bandhani flung upon the sofa’s backrest, the Jane Austen reader now graciously condescends to pose for a portrait.

[This is the 619th portrait of Mission Delhi project]