Double role story.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The two bougainvillea trees are currently in bloom, synchronising in perfect jugalbandi with each other, twinning brightly, here at Lodhi Garden. The pink flowers are drifting down continually on the ground. The pair is iconic, every Delhiwale should see it. The city itself, it seems, produces pairs in countless forms. Once you perceive the pattern, you spot it across the megapolis.

Take Kasturba Gandhi Marg, where the British Council stands across the road from the American Center (both institutions are popular for their libraries, though the latter’s has severely contracted over the years). In central Delhi, statues of Russian writers stand a short walk apart: Pushkin near Mandi House, Tolstoy on Janpath. Coffee places too mirror one another. On Baba Kharak Singh Marg, the Indian Coffee House, once a haunt for kurta-wearing intellectual types, faces the Coffee Home, which has a lovely courtyard with a grand tree. Both serve tasty masala dosas. (Sometimes citizens get confused between the two; he ends up waiting for her at the Coffee House, she for him at the Coffee Home).

Food places follow the same coupling. The snack counter of Delite Cinema in Daryaganj is known for its gigantic maha samosa; Embassy Restaurant in Connaught Place offers its samosa of exactly the same size. Market lanes repeat themselves: Gali Chooriwallan exists in both Old Delhi and Gurugram’s Sadar Bazar. Similarly, Chandni Chowk has the famed Old and Famous Jalebi Wala; Gurugram has the old and famous Sardar Jalebi. In Connaught Place, Anil Book Corner stands beside Plaza Cinema, while Mr Anil’s book stall stands in another corner of CP, near Regal Cinema.

Even monuments find echoes. The dome of poet Rahim’s tomb on Mathura Road was once fully marble. That marble was looted centuries ago to be slapped on nearby Safdarjung’s Tomb, on Aurobindo Road. So, when you gaze at Safdarjung, you are, in part, seeing Rahim.

Two graveyards also mirror each other, each sacred to a community outside the mainstream. Hidden in Mehrauli’s bazar, the Hijron ka Khanqah dates to the Lodhi period. Its courtyard holds fifty same-sized graves, and a larger one beneath a neem tree, is said to belong to a saint. Members of the transgender community visits the graveyard on Thursdays to offer flowers. A second graveyard lies along the Grand Trunk Road in Ghaziabad, which is known as Hijron ka Qabristan. Maintained by the transgender community for generations, it has most graves marked with stones, a few being simple mounds. The principal grave stands close to a neem tree.

And, right now, beneath the Lodhi Garden’s two aforementioned bougainvilleas, two couples are sitting on separate benches, twinning one another in quiet harmony—an echo of Delhi-Dilli itself, where many things, from flowers to graves, finds a reflection. This photo was snapped that same day, but later in the evening, long after the lovers had departed from the benches, the darkened light making the pink petals look purple.