A home of windows. [Text and photo by Maynak Austen Soofi] Delhi’s outdoors have grown increasingly hostile. Extreme pollution is poisoning the air, summer heatwaves are becoming inhumanely intense, and every year the monsoon inflicts a renewed threat of dengue fever. One victim of this triple whammy is an element of multi-floor housing architecture that is commonly taken for granted. The balcony. Once a cherished outdoor space at home for breathing, observing, and relaxing, the balconies in the city’s residential towers are losing their relevance. Today, they survive mainly as decorative relics. Even those citizens who have the luxury of balcony rarely step into it, keeping themselves secured in AC rooms equipped with air purifiers. Many balconies, in fact, tend to be sealed

Writer and the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Gulmohar Park was until recently known to have the bungalow of film star Amitabh Bachchan. Years earlier, the same south Delhi neighbourhood was home to another illustrious figure. Author Anita Desai lived in a bungalow just across the road from Gulmohar Park Club. In fact, Anita Desai wrote the novel Clear Light of Day in Gulmohar Park—this being artist Vinita Chawla’s recollection. She says Anita Desai was her parents’ tenant. The white-haired Vinita conjectures that her parents must have rented out their Gulmohar Park bungalow to Anita Desai’s husband, Ashvin, a business executive. The couple lived there perhaps during the mid-1970s, Vinita says, as she tries to remember those long-ago days

The way we were. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Drawing room, bedroom, dining room, pooja room, kitchen, balcony… these are the angrezi words many of us Hindi-speakers employ to map the geography of our houses. The earlier terms—Hindustani terms—detailing the domestic interiors have fallen out of use. Perhaps because the language of our daily life has evolved with the times. Maybe also because we don’t live in the kinds of houses that existed a century ago. Thankfully, those terms haven’t been lost. They lie preserved in the memories of citizens of a certain age, and also in books, such as the Gazetteer of the Gurgaon District 1910. Published in a new edition by Daryaganj-based Aryan Books International, it has a

On domestic architecture. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Purani Dilli merchant Saeed Mirza lives with his siblings and their families in a 150-year-old house. It possesses architectural elements of a quintessential Walled City mansion. Every room for instance has at least one taak, the arch-shaped niche scooped into the wall. The joint family is set to move to a recently built residence on the same street. The new “flat-style” house has no taak. Indeed, the taak, that has so long been an integral part of the Walled City’s old-fashioned household architecture—it is almost a family member!— is now nearing extinction. (The custom of taak of course isn’t limited to the historic quarter). In a typically traditional Walled City mansion, the taak would

Homemade biennale. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] You don’t necessarily need to go to Venice or Kochi to enjoy a biennale. Every home has its art installation, as unique as a fingerprint. Young bookseller Rishabh’s central Delhi apartment that he shares with parents (see photo) has a display case in the living room adorned with objects most important to him. Here’s a guided tour of some of the many elements making up the installation. Artificial guldasta Mumma purchased the plastic bouquet online. She also maintains a small garden in the balcony—real potted plants. Tulsi, sadabahar, curry leaves. lemon grass, kela, karela… she believes that plants help mantain sukh-shanti at home. Father’s photo with singer Daler Mehendi Before he became a full-time bookseller, daddy

The unseen side of Sunday Book Bazar. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sunday tends to be most special for Delhi’s booklovers. They head to the Sunday Book Bazar, which every week gets crammed with thousands of random books. The booklovers fish out their favourites and go back home. Some return to a non-reading household, its members already resentful about too many books hijacking too much of the limited space in the house. What of a Book Bazar bookseller? How is his home like? What does his family feel about the books? Step inside bookseller Manish Kapoor’s first-floor home, in north-west Delhi’s Rohini West. Bulky book towers claim half of the drawing room. They are almost touching the ceiling. The room has a

High-altitude living. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This is a tree. This tree has a nest. This nest has a bird. It is the very heart of our smoggy megapolis—a small plaza in commercial Connaught Place, right outside the Palika Bazar. The peepal has shed almost all its leaves. The clearly visible nest is nestled towards the top of the naked tree, see left photo. The nest overlooks the hulky Jeevan Bharti building. The bird cannot be seen in full, but at times she moves about in the nest, flashing something of her black figure. The shoppers underneath the tree are unaware of the bird. One anyway comes across enough birds in this megapolis rich with 234

His morning walk. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] His iPhone’s pedometer reading is galloping as fast as a bullish stock market index—1.009 steps… 1,100… Morning walk is daily life’s ordinary aspect. Businessman Arshad Fehmi’s 6 o’clock ritual is not so ordinary. For his morning walk unfolds on his sprawling roof, which overlooks an intimate and yet sweeping view of Old Delhi’s historic Jama Masjid. “Purani Dilli is too noisy and crowded, but right now all is silence. See, the gali below is empty. The sky is also empty of pigeons. No kite-flier either.” The slender soft-spoken Arshad points out most Old Delhi wale are asleep for the moment. “Because people here go to bed very late at night.” He himself is an