The curious world of a city bazar. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] In Old Delhi, people often remark that there is hardly any open and serene space within the Walled City's now non-existent walls where one can spend time outdoors. Public space survives mostly inside mosque courtyards and temple compounds. Indeed, this small little-known unnamed park is one of the very very few Purani Dilli places where one can come to be with themselves. This oppressively humid rainless monsoon afternoon, seemingly exhausted citizens are scattered across the park as randomly as fallen leaves on the ground. Along one edge of the park runs a red sandstone parapet overlooking the congested Meena Bazar, a world of dense patchwork of tin roofs and

The curious world of a city bazar. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Consider these 4pm scenes from a Wednesday afternoon. Mounds of gravel are spilling onto the footpath. Long metal sariyas are lying along the ground, as sweating labourers bend over them under a rainless monsoon afternoon. Yellow cement sacks and stacks of bricks occupy space meant for pedestrians. A bench sits marooned among bricks and rubble. And no passer-by appears surprised. Over the years, almost every visit to Central Delhi’s Meharchand Market feels as though it is undergoing some or the other sort of renovation, and no one knows when it will end. Here this shutter has come down forever; there that shutter has risen with a fresh façade. Blue

Final dispatch marking America’s semiquincentennial. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is widely accepted that New Delhi's finest modern buildings were designed by American architect Joseph Stein. Take the US Embassy. Hailed on its completion as the "American Taj Mahal," it too is a Stein creation... wrong! That distinction belongs to another American architect. The irony is that the American whose architecture profoundly shaped post-Independence Delhi is found not at the American Embassy, but at the nearby Australian High Commission. For the concluding dispatch in The Delhi Walla's series marking the 250th anniversary of American independence, it is fitting to celebrate the American whose enduring legacy is found in India's capital. Born in Omaha in 1912, Stein made Delhi his karmabhoomi in

And the monsoon rain baptised the park benches. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] To experience the Delhi monsoon at its best is no rocket science. All it takes is living in a VVIP neighbourhood where the drains actually work. Think of the elegant white sarkari bungalows of Lodhi Estate. Sitting snug beside rain-streaked glass windows, overlooking kitchen gardens and staff quarters, the sahib or memsahib may spend a happy afternoon watching the monsoon, sipping Tetley from Good Earth china. Outside this super-privileged enclave, the city may be surrendering to floods and jams, but here the baarish arrives as calmly as a plainspoken Mary Oliver poem; silver ropes of water softly meeting the earth. For most of us Delhiwale living elsewhere, the

On America's 250th. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] America clocked its 250th anniversary this weekend. In Delhi, those wishing to mark the occasion may stop outside the American Center and look up at a large portrait of President Donald Trump hanging on the building’s facade, overlooking the traffic on Kasturba Gandhi Marg. The banner has been there for some weeks, in anticipation of the Independence Day celebrations. A short distance away stands another reminder of America. Inside the India International Centre on Max Mueller Marg, a memorial honours two figures. One is counted among the greatest Indians, the other among the greatest Americans; both were bound by a shared vocabulary of ahimsa and moral struggle. When this American arrived in his

A corridor in time. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Go to the Regal Cinema building in Connaught Place. Walk down the corridor to the far end overlooking Sansad Marg and stop. Can you hear the faint piano strains of Vinteuil’s Sonata drifting through the air? You cannot. But if you are of a certain age, memory may supply what the corridor no longer does. Here was once Delhi's grand piano shop. Cities are shaped as much by what has vanished as by what still stands. They are composed of both the present and the past. In this stretch of Connaught Place, the two exist side by side. At this quieter end of Regal Building stood A. Godin & Co. Founded in Quetta in

Pink shelter. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] This June afternoon, the two giant bougainvilleas near the duck pond in Lodhi Garden are in rich bloom. Their pink canopies rise above the garden, visible through the summer haze. Blossoms are drifting down from the branches, carpeting the ground with papery petals. Only a few weeks ago, these trees were completely flowerless. That was puzzling, because their summer blooms are usually enduring. Whatever, now the branches are once again in pink. The trees being so picturesque, the benches beneath the trees attract visitors throughout the day. This afternoon is no different despite the sweltering heat. Two lovers are sitting quietly on one bench. Another is occupied by a family of five—a man, a woman,

Exhibition on mother-and-child. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Hundreds of years ago, when the Lodhi kings were ruling over Delhi, a great artist in Florence painted a picture of a mother and her child. Today, that painting, Madonna and Child by Botticelli, is on a short visit to our city. The painting’s subject was common then, as artists had depicted mothers and children for centuries, and it remains common to our day. While the theme is familiar, each such artwork feels slightly different. This very motherhood sits at the heart of One Mother, Many Mother Tongues, opening next Monday at the Havells Gallery in Central Delhi’s Humayun World Heritage Site Museum. The exhibition dwells on a bond that transcends time and

A boring park. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Lodhi Garden it is definitely not. It has no breathtaking beauty. Masjid Udyan Park in Old Gurugram is a small rectangular patch of land and, honestly speaking, it is a park more in name than in substance. The park’s lawn is mostly bare earth (see photo), pimpled by rat holes. In fact, the park was featured in this space some years ago, for it is special due to many reasons. And then there is another perspective. The park serves as a connecting point to some of the most fascinating aspects of the surrounding vicinity. Within a few steps of the park, three distinct self-contained worlds unfold; one of these, a tiny landmark, is