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

Old address. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The sunlight falling on the tall blue walls quivers softly, making the concrete look liquefied. The staircase to the roof is crisscrossing upwards into a series of landings. And the sehen, the courtyard below, is marooned in shantih. This house in Old Delhi’s Chawri Bazar belongs to one of its most eminent families. Around, the market is noisy, crowded and chaotic, but the house feels far from this agitation. Until 50 years ago, any letter reaching this residence wouldn’t mention Chawri Bazar. Houses had no number either. In the old days, the address written on the letter would tend to start with what is nowadays written last. This was the old postal address of

A citizen's inheritance. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The tangled malti vines are cascading down the high wall like a long waterfall. Scores of eensy-weensy birds are popping out of their dense foliage, looking like bubbles in the water—sparrows! Delhi’s rarely sighted state bird. Framing the dead-end of the minuscule Gali Salim Muhammed Shah, the 170-year-old haveli is nestled in one of the most cramped and chaotic parts of the Walled City. But Qaiser Manzil itself is marooned in space and silence. This afternoon, the porch inside the street-facing gateway is alive with the soft melodious gossiping of these restless sparrows. The drawing room within is calmer, a sanctuary of unostentatious chandeliers, slender lamps, and closets filled with vases so delicate

Home in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The day was clear and sunny, so the night will be much colder. This is his analysis. The bearded gentleman is one of the nine labourers—Kalam, Saleem, Kumrul, Abil, Javed, Raziq, Prakash, Mannu, Pappu—living together in a small street-facing enclosure close to the Delite Cinema in Old Delhi. It is evening, the deserted lane outside is plunged in semi-darkness. The enclosure is dimly lit with a small white lamp. The place feels as isolated as a hut in a village where each home becomes a solitary island after the sunset. Most of the men are huddled around a dying fire; a few others are lying sprawled towards the corners, absorbed

Cold night comrades. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is one of the coldest nights in the city so far this winter. Under the foggy sky, a group of young men are huddled around their cooking stove, its fire rustled out of wood pieces collected randomly from “idhar-udhar.” Dinner is almost ready. It is pitch dark. The stove’s dancing flames are momentarily lighting up somebody’s eye, somebody’s nose, somebody’s forehead. These seven colleagues work and live together, and are right now sitting on a great pile of the broken remains of a demolished bungalow—a house whose final days were featured a few weeks ago on this page. The men specialise in the systematic dismantling of bungalows. “Every day old bungalows are

The last sehen. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Old houses in Old Delhi were made of onion-like peels. There would be kamra, the room, often called the mehman khana to receive the guests. It would open into dalan, an intermediary space between the interiors and exteriors of the house. It, in turn, would open into sehen, or aangan, the courtyard. Only a few such residences survive in the Walled City. Hameed Manzil in Gali Nal Wali is one of them. The long departed Hameeduddin, a merchant of gold laces, built it in 1910. This afternoon, his grandson Fazle Haque, and this venerable gent’s two sisters and a nephew, are huddled quietly around the dining table, having finished with their lunch.

End of an era. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Its over. The last of the old Khan Market is gone. A pivotal event concerning India’s most upscale shopping destination took place quietly, some months back. Khan Market’s last remaining shop owners who still had their home in the market have moved to Defence Colony. The Bamhi family that runs the landmark Faqir Chand bookstore in the market’s front lane sold their residential flat in the middle lane—no. 59—in October. Their Khan Market home is history, their shop continues. The bookstore’s owners were living in Khan Market since 1951, when the market began with 154 shops and 75 flats. The shops were on the ground floor, the flats on the first. Till

A home in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The house is now a debris. A huge mountain of broken bricks has spilled out into what used to be a driveway. It looks like one of those press agency photographs depicting a powerful earthquake in some far-off city. Four men are sitting on the ground, by the semi-dismantled gate. This could be a scene in any upscale neighbourhood in the megapolis. Here is unfolding one of the most familiar and frequent, though unrecorded, stories of our times. An old house is being razed down to be replaced by a multi-storey apartment complex. During this shift between the old and the new, the vacant space tends to be occupied by

The room lives on. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is gone, lying buried in Dilli Gate cemetry, but his packed bookshelves are in their appointed places. His mattress and pillows, too. The angle the afternoon sunlight is making thorough the terrace-facing window is also same as before. The Ajanta wall clock is continuing to tick. This is the room-cum-study of scholar Abdul Sattar in Old Delhi’s Pahari Imli. He passed away four months ago, aged 78, leaving behind children, grandchildren, and hundreds of books in Urdu and English. A reader, writer and a collector, Abdul Sattar was born in this room, and in this room he died. The family has made conscious efforts to let the room remain as it