Inside the walls. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Close to midnight, Abdul Sattar is shutting his metal-plating workshop. In a few minutes, the cramped space becomes his bedroom. This suits him fine. His extended family lives just down the street in their “very small” house in Old Delhi. “But, I like living alone, and they accept that.” Only a faint light glows as we adjust to the darkness. Mr Sattar will soon catch some sleep in a bed lying in a corner where discoloured mats are piled one on top of the other. During those long opening hours at Ganj Mir Khan street, he runs his business. Every day, this 60-something craftsman plies his skills over any number of rusting machines strewn about. Over

Inside the walls. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Houses of foreign envoys always conjure up images of hushed elegance. The Delhi Walla still remembers the visit to the Australian High Commissioner’s residence in Chanakyapuri a few months ago (click here for that story). What a lovely garden it had. Even the tea kettle looked exquisite. The house itself was designed by Joseph Stein, the architect behind post-Independence Delhi’s greatest garden buildings. And it’s only one example. Recently I dropped by the Polish Ambassador’s residence on Tilak Marg. It is not a Stein building. It is not even inspired by the New Delhi architect Edward Lutyens. And yet, it is more significant. This is the place where Dr BR Ambedkar lived, with his

Inside the walls. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] At around 12,000 rupees every month, Kamal makes a living collecting scrap. There’s only one problem. Despite these earnings, Kamal is homeless. On this Sunday morning he awakens to plentiful sunlight and lots of fine dust, here on the pavement at Asaf Ali Road. Of course, The Delhi Walla can’t help asking him the obvious. “Why are you living on the street?” Kamal shrugs, explaining he is sort of a bachelor, you might say. “They won’t rent out rooms to people like me.” In fact Kamal has a wife and children back home in Mirzapur, UP. “But in Delhi they view me as a single guy. People are scared having me live too close to their

Inside the walls. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One day his home was there, as always. Today, it’s not there. That unauthorized makeshift dwelling was the only constant in this ever-changing middle-class neighborhood in suburban Vasundhara. Known simply as Chacha Jan, or Dear Uncle, the elderly man had arrived in Vasundhara in 2000. Situated beyond the eastern edges of Delhi, the area was then uninhabited. His shack was the only structure here. Today, we have dozens of apartment blocks here, each with its barricaded gate. And in this portion of precious real estate, Chacha Jan’s improvised abode had been allowed to survive for so long. The Delhi Walla once documented his house, little knowing that it would soon be history. A native of western

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Traffic has slowed to trickle near Jangpura Metro station where two tired rickshaw pullers are calling it a night. Dressed down to their lungis, Bhajan Lal and Vishwajeet Mondal carefully unfold a pink mosquito net, rig it up, and then tie the loose ends to their rickshaws. After spreading a sheet across the pavement they smilingly suggest The Delhi Walla joins them. “Don’t worry about rain,” advises Mr. Mondal. “We’re protected by the elevated rail roof...” As I slowly crawl in, Mr Mondal relates a recent disaster in his life. A native of Maldah in West Bengal, the wheat harvest at the family farm was ruined in monsoon flooding. “Hamara saara dhaan doob gaya.” But now

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] As the eyes adjust to the darkness, The Delhi Walla realizes that the bare walls are of lakhori bricks. The thick columns seem to be hewed out of stones. But, oh, the floor. It's all sand. I'm at the home of Geetam, Munna and Ashok in Old Delhi's Galli Choori Wallan. The three laborers have been living in this... what should I call this place? Probably the remnants of a haveli. The three men living here call it ‘purana khandahar’, the old ruin. They haul construction material on wooden carts to different parts of the Walled City for a living. Despite its architectural elegance, the place has the character of a godown. Sacks of

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] To be a High Commissioner is, well, something. The Delhi Walla mulled this over while visiting the Australian High Commission recently. Amid the lush greenery is a mansion designed by the legendary Joseph Allen Stein. As Australia’s High Commissioner to India, Harinder Sidhu enjoys other perks too, such as a sprawling garden ruled by peacocks and the estimable Bindeshwar Ram, the cook who dishes out aloo parathas at a moment’s notice. “That’s my favourite Saturday brunch,” says Ms Sidhu, who is of Punjabi origin and was raised in Australia. Appointed in 2016, she has been a career officer in the Australian Foreign Office. But there’s more to her than just diplomacy — I spot a

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Old Delhi’s Shamim ud Din loves machinery. So much so that he decided, years ago, that he needed a tiny dark room near the family residence to store it in. “Yes, I know it’s cluttered,” he says, feasting on chhole poori while we chat. “The trouble is, I now have to live here!” His legs hurt so much he can no longer climb the stairs to the family apartment, where his wife and children live. That house is further ahead on the street. Surveying the scene, The Delhi Walla spots an old Kelvinator fridge... a wall clock wrapped in plastic... a couple of strange looking machines we can’t quite decipher... and under the bed,

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] “Stop bitching. Start a revolution.” “Religion stops a thinking mind.” “Proud to be a feminist.” “Keep your laws off my body.” These stickers grace the room where she is writing short stories these days. One afternoon The Delhi Walla meets Taslima Nasrin in her study. The Bangladesh-born writer has been living in exile in Delhi for over five years. I will not disclose her neighbourhood for security reasons, but I can gladly tell you that it overlooks a lovely garden, and that her beautiful balcony is hidden behind with half a dozen wildish trees. The study, however, appears to have nothing to link it to Delhi. We could as well be in Dhaka, Paris, Stockholm, Berlin, Munich,

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Karl Marx is lying on his shoe rack. Italo Calvino is on his double bed. Federico García Lorca is beside a little guitar. Amitav Ghosh, VS Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Ernest Hemingway and Mirza Ghalib are on a long table. They are stacked with many other authors including Arundhati Roy and Manan Kapoor. And, we are lucky enough to be in Manan Kapoor’s room. Besides being a novelist, he is also a postgraduate student in Delhi’s Ambedkar University. Mr Kapoor’s first novel, The Lamentations of a Sombre Sky, was set in strife-torn Kashmir. It made its debut in 2016. He is now working on a new novel, something to do with memories of a