In Joyce's Dublin. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This is the story of two Dubliners. One is a professor, the other is an engineer. One is a former New Yorker, the other is an Irish native. Both share a passion for the same novel. James Joyce’s Ulysses is contained into a single day, 16 June, and that date is celebrated worldwide as Bloomsday, named after the novel’s hero—Mr. Bloom. To celebrate the city novel, The Delhi Walla is in Dublin for Bloomsday 2025. Sam Slote (see photo on left) is among the world’s most renowned Joyceans. He is a Professor in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin. His book Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses is the most authoritative guide to

In Joyce's Dublin. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Good morning, 16 June! Today is the day to visit a rarely-visited Delhi monument. It stands in Daryaganj, but lies hidden behind the remains of the mostly vanished Walled City wall. Built as a defensive fortification by the British following our first war of independence, it is called Martello Tower. Similar towers were built across Ireland, another former British colony. Twenty of them are still standing in the capital, Dublin. One of these towers frames the opening scene of what is universally acknowledged to be the world’s pioneering modernist novel. James Joyce’s Ulysses is set in Dublin and unfolds within a single day—16 June. The date is celebrated worldwide as Bloomsday, named after the

In Joyce's Dublin. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Years after poet Ghalib’s passing, the beautiful doorway of his last haveli in the Walled City was carefully dismantled from its surrounding wall of old-fashioned lakhori bricks, and installed as a primary exhibit in the museum celebrating his life and works. But you can never see that door because… well, the story’s not true. The final residence of Delhi’s great literary figure actually fell into dereliction. At one point, it was used as a coal warehouse. This wasn’t exactly the kismet of Dublin’s great writer James Joyce—but we’ll get there. His novel Ulysses is famously contained into a single day, 16 June, and that date is celebrated worldwide as Bloomsday, named after the novel’s

Small things of utmost happiness. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] July in Ayemenem is not a hot, brooding month. The days are not long, though they continue to be humid. The river does not seem to shrink at all. Red bananas cannot be seen ripening either, and no jackfruit is bursting. Dissolute bluebottles fail to hum vacuously in the non-fruity air. These lines, mangled, are from the opening passage of The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy’s first novel. These are also the first lines The Delhi Walla wrote during a July expedition to Ayemenem, the village in Kerala that frames the novel’s backdrop. Almost 20 years after the publication of The God Of Small Things, Penguin Books in the UK announced

The world's first ghetto. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Butchers and blacksmiths, fortune-tellers and beggars, carpet sellers and cobblers, chickens and children... all of this made more frenzied by the great milling crowds. It could be Old Delhi. This is the world’s first ghetto, and it is not in India but Italy. The ancient Jewish district of Venice was the world’s first officially segregated quarter to confine a persecuted minority community into a limited space. It’s observing its 500th anniversary this year—the Most Serene Republic of Venice declared on 29 March 1516 that “The Jews must all live together... they do not move around during the night... let two doors be built which are to be opened each morning... and

On the world's first ghetto. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is a scholar of the world’s first ghetto—the ancient Jewish ghetto of Venice is observing its 500th anniversary this year. One late morning The Delhi Walla meets Lucio De Capitani at Parco Savorgnan, a public garden not far from the ghetto. Despite this being a liquid city, there is no water to be seen. An old palace blocks the view of the park from the canal. The decorative pools are dry. Seated on a bench, the 20-something PhD student says, “I’m studying the works of authors who travelled to distant places and tried to describe other people and cultures. Amitav Ghosh is one such writer. He went to Egypt, Burma,

The last Mughal's grave. [Text and photos by Florian Morin] The tomb of Bahadur Shah Zafar, Delhi's last Mughal emperor, is just a few hundred meters away from the Shwedagon Pagoda, the most sacred stupa in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) and the ultimate must-see monument in Yangon (formerly Rangoon), its largest city. Unlike its gilded and famous neighbour, however, Zafar's tomb was almost empty when I went to visit it, one Saturday evening in December, not long before its closing time. Only two men were seated at the entrance. The elder one, I think, was the guard. Because Bahadur Shah Zafar was not just a king, his tomb is not just a tomb. An Urdu poet and a devout Sufi,