One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Laila Tyabji, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, unites some of the best blessings of existence. Oh well, how to hide it from you, dear all-knowing reader? The line above has been plagiarised from the famous opening of a famous Jane Austen novel. Except that the heroine’s name has been replaced by the name of Delhi’s no. 1 Jane Austenite. (Otherwise Jane Austen’s description fits our fellow citizen to a tee.) This December marks Jane Austen’s 250th birth anniversary, and craft revivalist Laila Tyabji’s reading life effortlessly connects us to the world of the timeless English writer. Laila has been living with Jane

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Once there lived a blacksmith. His son was also a blacksmith. His son’s son is not a blacksmith. The young man is a skater. This evening, Adnan is skating along a concrete walking track in Lodhi Garden. He glides past the faraway sunset, past the park people lounging on the rain-wet grass, past the centuries-old Sheesh Gumbad. He respectfully slows down as he overtakes an elderly gent, after which he immediately picks up speed, soon disappearing from sight. On the following evening, over lemon tea tête-à-tête in a Walled City chaikhana, Adnan says he never skates in his Old Delhi neighbourhood. He is speaking slowly, in a low

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Majnu Ka Tila, aka MT, is like a shrine to Dalai Lama. Photos bearing the Tibetan leader’s face show up on the walls of cafés, bakeries, restaurants, hotel receptions, curio shops, street shacks, street walls, and even on electric poles. One stall is hawking Dalai Lama dolls. The north Delhi enclave of Tibetan refugees also happens to be a long-time karma bhoomi for one of our fellow Indians. Sanker is MT’s masseur-cum-ear cleaner. This Sunday afternoon, the middle-aged gent is stationed outside MT’s gate no. 5. He is sitting silently on a ramshackle bench, beside a local drunkard. “I have yet to receive the day’s first

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Ensconced in his living room, Mahesh Kumar, 60, is evaluating his life. All his five brothers are gone from the world, he says. “There are things you can discuss only with your siblings... that is no longer possible for me.” There are also things that one is comfortable sharing only with the immediate family. In that, Mahesh is fortunate. He lives with wife, Renu, in their first-floor flat in Kotla Mubarakpur, along with daughter Himanshi, son Varun, and dog Simba. The eldest child, Ritika, lives with her husband elsewhere in the city. As he natters on, wife Renu enters the living room carrying a tea tray. Her

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The grand moustache gives the shopkeeper the vibes of an army general. Indeed, Inder Parkash Narula has been victoriously commandeering a Delhi landmark through these long volatile decades. Over the years, as his city changed, he astutely adapted his business to the change. Today, at “81 plus,” Inder Parkash is among the elders of Prithviraj, the rather subdued market separated by a narrow lane from the la di da of Khan Market. This afternoon, Narula’s Stationery is densely crammed with stationery things. Like many veteran establishments of New Delhi, the shop traces its origins to a tragic episode of Indian history. Inder Parkash, the shop’s friendly proprietor,

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Meet Dilli’s no. 1 Joycean. This gentlewoman in Sunder Nagar is likely to be the only Delhi dweller to have made it to the most significant James Joyce destination on the very first day of its opening to the public. It all started in 1922, with the publication of Ulysses. Joyce’s great Dublin novel unfolds within a single day—16 June, today named Bloomsday after the book’s hero, and celebrated across the world. That day, Dublin‘s sea-facing Martello tower becomes a mecca for Joyce fans; it being the site of the novel’s opening scene. In 1962, the tower was filled with souvenirs from the writer life, and thrown

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is a must for any Delhi citizen planning to travel abroad to at least once enter this sprawling basement complex tucked under Shivaji Stadium metro station. Here is the office of VFS Global, the company to which most foreign embassies have outsourced their visa application procedures. The friendly staffers examining the necessary documents sit behind their formidable counter, exercising extraordinary patience with nervous visa applicants. Rohit Taneja is one of those staffers. He is a “visa manager” for the Schengen countries of Europe. Like any of us with an office job, he has his identity firmly stitched into the fabric of his workplace. But he

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The spot under the short spindly tree on Connaught Lane in Central Delhi marks citizen Maidul’s anda-bread egg stall. Every evening, this tiny portion of the capital’s real estate becomes the middle-aged man’s corner in the big wide world. To reach this place, he had to shift his bases many times over, across the country. Some forty years ago, a young Maidul left his village in Bihar’s Katihar to find a new life in the unfamiliar megapolis of Delhi. There was just no promising future in the village. His landless forefathers had exhausted their lifetimes as hired farmers. In Delhi, Maidul started as a waiter in

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It rained an hour ago—the sky is still cloudy. Like any Saturday afternoon, the shops are open in this south Delhi market plaza. The glass-walled cafe is milling with posh people, as always. The scene looks ordinary, yet something feels different; it was captured just a few hours before the ceasefire between India and Pakistan was announced. For the past few days, following the terror attack last month on tourists in Pahalgam, many of us have been glued to our mobile phone screen, tracking updates on the evolving situation, our minds claimed by concern for the country and fears about the stability of our own life.