Noida dreaming. [Photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] There is Okhla. Then there is the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority… we call it Noida! This Yamuna-paar land of dreamy towers (see photo) stretches greatly to Greater Noida. Its landscape marked by names like Sector 18 and Sector 62, poetic to those finding poetry in numbers. Indeed, the most poetically named place in the Delhi region may well be Noida’s Pari Chowk, the Intersection of Fairies. In this same spirit, dear reader, say hello to Delhi-based poet Jonaki Ray, who has written a poem (exclusively for us!) about her daily commute to her day-job den in Noida. Of New Industries and Old Dreams Once, long ago, I had woken up early to watch birds nesting near

Portrait of a citizen. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Poet Ana Dehlavi is a familiar face in the world of Delhi’s poetry meets. This day, she graciously agrees to join 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 a shayara, a poetess. That is the chief aspect of my being. You must understand that not everyone has the fortune to be a poet. Especially for a woman with my family background. My nanihal (mother’s family) is in Lucknow and my dadihal (father’s family) is in Aligarh. Both branches of my family are conservative. Back in the days when I had started rendering

Persia is not far. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The news from Iran continues to be distressing. In Delhi, we are geographically removed from the war’s direct reach. Yet Iran is never far. Something of its cultural spirit lingers in this city, including in the work of Delhi’s great poet. To Mirza Ghalib, the Irani bhasha was the language of ambition. In the 19th century Delhi of his time, Persian commanded elite status, like the English in post-independent India or French in Tsarist Russia. Ghalib started by writing poems in both homegrown Urdu and Persian. Over time, he was drawn to the exactness and range of Persian—qualities he apparently didn’t find in Urdu. In all, Ghalib wrote about 2,000 couplets in

And still the flowers bloom. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Wars are raging in West Asia and Ukraine. And yet, flowers continue to bloom—even along city roadsides. (Sometimes surreal sights of discarded bouquets are encountered in most unusual sites—see photo, snapped in Gurugram’s Jacobpura). Indeed, beyond the news headlines, our lives in Delhi are going on (relatively) unaltered, for now. So is the case with poet Jonaki Ray, who commutes four days a week to her day-job at an IT multinational in Noida. Recently, she moved to an apartment in South Delhi’s Alaknanda, close to Jahapanah City Forest. She has yet to unpack all her boxes of books, but she has already written her first poem in the new

Poetry in the city. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Ritu Chowdhry began writing poetry while growing up in Kanpur. After her marriage, she took the name Ritu Asthana and moved to Faridabad in the Delhi region, where she has lived for over two decades. Over time, her writing and her identity as a poet became closely tied to the city. Today, she signs her work as Ritu Asthana “Ruhi” Faridabadi. This name reflects her personal and geographical sense of belonging. “Life for a girl, when she is living with her parents, is simpler,” she says this afternoon, over an encounter in a literary academy, where the hushed hall is filled with portraits of dead writers and out-of-use typewriters. Ritu observes

Barbershop Homer. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Every evening, after dining with their respective families at home, a handful of men in a certain part of Old Delhi gather in Gali Choori Wallan, and settle down until far beyond the midnight at shop no. 530. It is a barbershop. These men don’t come here for a haircut. They sit here silently, partaking in the companionship of each other’s presence, as well as gazing at the hectic night life of the street outside. They also lend their ears to Asif, the barbershop’s barber, whenever the latter is bitten by the muse. For Asif is also a shaayar. The soft-spoken gent is a poet of the Homeric sort, in the sense

Sense of an ending. [Photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The world is, according to a saying, only the size of each man’s head. Delhi has millions of people, and today in the final day of 2025, each of us millions of citizens must be making sense of the concluding year through our own creative and messy ways. One such citizen is Ronak Singh Bhasin, who came of age in West Delhi’s Hari Nagar. (Years ago, he had an insta handle describing himself as Pagal Kavi, or mad poet, which he jettisoned after outgrowing that persona). To mark the year-end, he has especially composed a poem for us. Ronak suggests that he has been gradually getting wary of this life and all that

On the passing of Vinod Kumar Shukla. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Today is actor Salman Khan’s birthday. It is also actor Timothée Chalamet’s birthday. It is also the birth anniversary of Delhi’s greatest poet. The Delhi Walla exploits this day to celebrate our Mirza Ghalib exclusively through numbers. The accompanying photo was snapped some afternoons ago, just as internationally renowned photographer Nicholas Vreeland (also a Buddhist monk) was sighted visiting Ghalib’s marble tomb in central Delhi. Plus, a shoutout to Ghalib Academy secretary Aqil Ahmad, kind enough to double-check some of these figures. 27/12/1797 Date of Ghalib’s birth. He was born in Agra. 1 Number of Mughal emperors in whose court Ghalib was most memorably associated as a poet. The emperor at the

On the passing of Vinod Kumar Shukla. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The year is ending with a profound loss. Writer Vinod Kumar Shukla died on Tuesday at a hospital in Raipur, Chattisgarh, aged 88. Among many readers who felt a personal sense of loss at his passing is a young poet in Delhi. Mukul lives in Mayur Vihar Phase 3. Over an exchange on WhatsApp, he talked of his attachment to the late writer, especially referring to his poem Hatasha Se Ek Vyakti Baith Gaya Tha. He went on gushing respectfully about the departed poet: “The way Shuklji drops profundities in the plain sight of ordinary language. The way his sentences, familiar at first sight, move and bend into