The way city speaks. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] “Stephen, his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture, blushed." — James Joyce in Ulysses Every generation is wooed by its own language. It falls for fresh words, gives inherited words new meanings, and discovers slogans and catchphrases that become the soundtrack of its youth. If you wanted to hear Delhi's newest words in circulation, Jantar Mantar was recently the place to stand. Students had gathered beside the centuries-old solar observatory to protest paper leaks in competitive exams. The air was thick with contemporary slogans, many destined for Instagram, alongside words already entering Delhi's everyday speech. Every decade, Delhi sounds a little different. A decade or two ago, college students called anything impressive jhakaas.

Literature and the city. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Perhaps America’s 250th independence anniversary does matter to us in India. The United States has shaped global cultural life, giving the world jazz, Hollywood, and generations of influential writers. American literature, in particular, has been moulded by a staggeringly diverse range of voices and lived experiences, from writers as distinct as Toni Morrison and Ocean Vuong. One such writer is Jhumpa Lahiri, whose work spans lands, languages, and pehchan, reflecting many of the idiosyncratic qualities that define American writing. Born in London to Bengali immigrants, raised in the United States, and now a resident of Rome, she visited Delhi earlier this year. One slice from that visit provides a fitting way to

Literary scene in climate chnage. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Oops! Only one person as audience in the hall for a literary gathering. See photo. Blame the heat. Temperatures are in the 40s. The heat index makes it feel above 50. The programme is due to begin at 5pm. It is the monthly prose meet at Central Delhi's Ghalib Academy. Open to all, every participant is invited to the podium to read a short story, essay or some such piece of prose that they have written, in any language. But before anyone can read, there has to be an audience. Yes, dear reader, this is what some of the literary life can look like during Delhi's extreme summer. Just weeks earlier, despite the

City and its lifeline. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Before we talk of the rising inches. Most Delhiwale are reminded of the Yamuna only when the monsoon arrives, the river spills across its plains, and flooding takes over the front pages of our newspapers. (A. K. Ramanujan’s A River best encapsulates this annual phenomenon; a line from the poem inspires the opening words of this dispatch). Just before the rains, as now, the city’s Yamuna appears narrow, lazy and sluggish. Buffaloes graze on its temporary islands. The blackish water giving no hint of the river’s bonds to the city. Yet this may be a suitable time to see the Yamuna not as a crisis but as one of Delhi's defining landscapes. Coming down

One city, one nation. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] See the photo. It alone is enough to tell the whole story. An auto-rickshaw is parked on a Delhi roadside bearing a “Happy Birthday America!” placard announcing the forthcoming 250th anniversary of American independence. The placard is part of an outreach initiative by the US Embassy. Behind the auto rises Dilli Gate, a monument that had already stood for more than a hundred years when the United States was born on the Fourth of July, 1776. This is not an attempt to diminish the story of present-day America. The photo simply offers perspective. When the American colonies declared independence from Britain, Delhi was already a very, very old city weighed down by centuries

His life, like a Persian memory. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The stalemate in Iran continues to dominate headlines. In Delhi, we are geographically removed from the war’s direct reach, yet its repercussions are strongly felt. So too are the enduring traces of Iran’s cultural heritage, which lingers across India and in its capital. Just last evening, the Iran Culture House in Delhi opened an exhibition at Sunder Nursery titled Shared Epic Worlds: The Shahnameh, the Mahabharat, and the Indo-Persian Imagination.In fact, these pages have already explored some of the intersections between Delhi and Persia. Today, it is time to recall a great Persian scholar of our city, whose tenth death anniversary falls this year. A professor of Persian at Zakir

His poetic grace. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] His elegant sartorial style and measured manner of speaking made him look like a poet. In truth, this graceful man was a devoted reader of Urdu poetry, with a special attachment to late poet Mushir Jhinjhanvi. Partly perhaps because he was this poet’s son. Naseer Jhinjhanvi, a distinguished resident of the Walled City, died on Thursday after a prolonged illness, aged 63. He was buried in the same grave at the Dilli Gate Qabristan where his poet-father was buried 36 years ago. Two of Naseer’s sons live in Europe, but he spent his life entirely within his labyrinthine residence in Old Delhi’s crowded Chitli Qabar Chowk. The building, once defined by old-fashioned courtyards, terraces,

Passing of an iconic photographer. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The first instinct, when one came face-to-face with this lean, long-limbed artist, was to meet his gaze. Because Raghu Rai’s eyes carried entire histories within them. For decades, they had recorded the turbulence of our restless India: the Bangladesh War, the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the violence that followed, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, Operation Blue Star. Yet that gaze would linger just as sensitively on more serene versions of India where, he would suggest, nothing really changes. Some of his most enduring work outside breaking news came in extended photo essays for India Today magazine in the 1980s--including the heart-touching feature on a sarus crane living with a human

Passing of a life. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The lane is full of absences. Even its name is absent—it has none. It begins with the shrine of a Sufi mystic who lost his life to an emperor’s wrath. The small shrine of Hazrat Sarmad Shahid in Old Delhi is painted red, the traditional color of his martyrdom. Sarmad lived unconventionally, known as the naked fakir. His life, or perhaps his defiance, lingers on in the street. A few steps away stood the makeshift home of an elderly transgender person who identified herself as a “kinnar.” Her name was Munna. She lived with a group of younger transgender people who called her their guru. One of her “chela”was the friendly Shigori,

Is Sundar Nagar really sundar. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] A rose smells like a rose. In a world that feels uncertain, that is reassuring. But names don’t always carry such certainty. Take a locality in East Delhi. Despite its name, Khichdipur doesn’t smell of khichdi. Delhi, in fact, is crammed with places whose names have drifted away from their literal meanings. Like a kati patang, a kite cut loose in the wind. Consider the elite Friends Colony and New Friends Colony. Are their residents friendlier than residents of other ‘hoods? Is Shadipur listed in any record book for hosting the maximum number of shaadiyan (weddings)? Is Swasthya Vihar especially known for swasthya (health)? Truth be told, the rooftops of Sunlight Colony are