Namrata’s extraordinary buddy list. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] We may as well start with her mobile phone. A hospitality industry professional, Namrata Rynjah’s mobile is filled with photos of very many dogs. The photo album is named Nizz east buddies. “Nizz east” being Nizamuddin East, which is Namrata’s central Delhi neighbourhood; and the “buddies” in the album’s name refers to… well, Nizamuddin East’s street dogs! Namrata is like the Dr Salim Ali of dogs. The ornithologist catalogued the birds of India, Namrata has catalogued all the street dogs of her neighbourhood. Indeed, many dogs are living here, spread across residential blocks, community parks, including in the sleepy backside market. Since the “colony” is a bit upscale, these street dwellers are

Jane Austen in Delhi. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Such happiness to join a party cheering for Jane Austen. The coming December marks the novelist’s 250th birth anniversary. As a buildup to the auspicious occasion, the English literature students of Delhi University's Aryabhatta College have assembled this afternoon in the college’s… oh well, one wants to call this hall a ballroom, but ballrooms belong to Jane Austen’s rural England, where rich men and handsome women fall in love over dance, gossip, and piano forte. This hall is simply called Student’s Activity Center. The consolation is that many students present here happen to be reading Jane Austen, that too for the first time; her novel Pride and Prejudice being a part of

Reading the walls. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The historic Walled City of Old Delhi is barely left with its original stone walls. No worries. The much larger modern-day megapolis of New Delhi has hundreds of thousands of individual brick walls that flank its roads and streets, colonies and slums, bazars and suburbs. These walls are full of idiosyncratic personalities, and tend to be plastered with all sorts of advertising flyers. Some ads are banal, some are funny, some are sad, and some are shockingly crude. Together, the wall flyers show the city’s inner life, inadvertently betraying the anxieties and aspirations of its citizens. One afternoon, a young man is seen stamping a roadside wall with such flyers near the New

Journal of a vanished year [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Malls, multiplexes, housing towers, sleek bungalows, and those posh offices of multinational companies. That’s Gurugram. And yet, until 2016, Gurugram was called Gurgaon; the “gaon” in the name translating to village. This sheher indeed was a gaon. Farm fields would spread out as far as eyes could see—says an elderly Gurugram citizen. Until decades ago, he recalls, here was a village. Over time, it quickly enlarged into a town, then into a cosmopolitan city, ultimately transforming into the so-called Millennium City. Today, it is impossible to imagine the golden real estate of Gurugram as an agricultural landscape dotted with farmers, tractors, cattle, and crops of many kinds. Here’s the recreation

As time passes. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded”— so said Princess Diana in a sensational TV interview in 1995. At the time she was married to Prince Charles, who was having an extramarital affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. Mrs Parker Bowles, of course, was the third person in the marriage. Cut to 30 years later. One evening last week, British High Commissioner Lindy Cameron was hosting a “joyful celebration” of the life of the recently departed Lord Meghnad Desai at her tasteful Rajaji Marg residence. Dressed in white, the gracious Kishwar Desai, late economist’s wife, was personally receiving the invitees. These guests sauntered into the living

Portrait of a couple. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] This unusual story began a decade ago. Last week, the story met its climax. In 2014, The Delhi Walla purchased from a vendor at Delhi’s Sunday Book Bazar a crumpled polybag filled with envelopes addressed to cities like New York, Geneva, Dar es Salaam, Paris, Belgrade, Moscow and Delhi. Spanning over 40 years, these were letters exchanged between a husband and wife. The handwritten correspondence began in the 1940s, when he was her suitor. The bag had passed to the vendor from a “raddiwalla,” who had sourced it from a “raddiwalla” in an upscale Delhi neighbourhood. Without doubt, this lifetime’s worth of letters must have been discarded mistakenly. (Every Sunday, such abandoned

Story of a street dog. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The week began with the Supreme Court directing that all stray dogs in the Delhi region be rounded up within eight weeks and housed in shelters, with no animal being released back on the streets. The two-judge bench was responding to an “alarming and disturbing” rise in stray dog attacks. It is indeed true that not all strays in the city are neutered and free of rabies, causing risk to communities. Here’s the story of how a Delhi street dog, infamous for being a biter, found a home. As black as a moonless night, Kaloo lived on the streets of Jor Bagh, kept watch with the chowkidars, and slept under