City Season – Pilkhan Leaves, Hauz Khas Lake General by The Delhi Walla - April 4, 2025April 4, 20250 A tale of two colours. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The park around the lake in Hauz Khas Village is full of trees. This evening, however, the picnicking people are more taken in by the sunset hues. The lake’s smelly water is aflame with the twilight’s colour, and no one is looking up at the unusual colours of tree leaves. The park is studded with scores of pilkhan. Currently, the leaves of most of these trees are in their customary green—though the green is looking fresh, as if newly minted. But the leaves of some of the pilkhans are in shades of bronze. Pilkhan’s old leaves start to fall off during the end of Delhi winters. New leaves come up within
City Landmark – Graveyard for Transgenders, Ghaziabad General Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - April 2, 2025April 2, 20250 A secretive place. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Believed to be a Lodhi-era graveyard, the Hijron ka Khanqah lies snuggled in a congested bazar in south Delhi’s historic enclave of Mehrauli. It certainly is not as famous as the nearby UNESCO World Heritage Site of Qutub Minar. It however enjoys a cult status among the city aesthetes who pride themselves in being intimate with Delhi’s lesser-known monuments. As the name makes it obvious, the old graveyard is identified with the transgender citizens. It comprises of an airy courtyard containing dozens of graves; the principal grave is worshipped as the shrine of “Peer Baba.” But not even the all-knowing Google is aware of another graveyard linked to the transgender community. It
City Walla – Gali Devidas, Old Delhi General Walks by The Delhi Walla - March 30, 2025March 30, 20250 The Old Delhi street encyclopedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Once upon a time, more than a hundred years ago, a house came up in the Walled City. The house had a doorway. The doorway was unremarkable. Many such houses after all had such a doorway. And then time passed. The house witnessed deaths and births, even as elsewhere in the Walled City old houses gave way to the new. A few houses however continued to stand, many of them growing derelict, yet retaining traces of original grace. Gradually, more old houses disappeared. This house continues to stand to this day. You may view it in Old Delhi’s little-known Gali Devidas. Since many houses with such a doorway
City Life – Nony Singh’s Painting, Vasant Vihar General Life by The Delhi Walla - March 26, 2025March 26, 20250 Traveling artwork. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Shy of revealing her age, 88-year-old Nony Singh remembers finishing Blue Painting “around the time of President Kennedy’s assassination.” The oil painting hangs in a balcony-facing corner of the artist’s residence in Vasant Vihar. Since Nony Singh doesn’t sell her work, all of it has always been in her possession. The Blue Painting is an exception, coloured with an unusual story. In the winter of 2021, one of Nony Singh’s four daughters received an e-mail from a stranger in England. It sparked off a correspondence—common friends were mentioned, long-ago events recalled. While the e-mails tell of the aforementioned artwork, they also unwittingly summon a sense of the era when people wrote polite letters,
City Nature – River Yamuna, DND Flyway General by The Delhi Walla - March 7, 20250 River sutra. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The water is opaque and blackish, moving sluggishly. A man slowly emerges from under it. His whole body stays submerged in the water, except for the head. He looks up, and waves at the gazer standing by the bridge. The bridge is upon the Yamuna. The sacred river originates from the snowbound altitude of the Himalayas, falls into the plains, flows through Haryana, and then is obliged to traverse for 20 very dismal kilometres through Delhi, where more than 20 drains eject their refuse into it. While some 15 bridges span over the Yamuna along its fateful Delhi course, this bridge on the DND flyway most cinematically illustrates the bonds between the megapolis and
City Life – Jane Austen in Delhi, Around Town General Life by The Delhi Walla - January 14, 2025January 14, 20250 Life's feast with a beloved writer. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Surely no enjoyment is as amiable as reading Jane Austen. The year 2025 might be one more year of busy nothings, but it does mark the 250th birth anniversary of the world’s greatest drawing-room novelist. (After all, when Jane Austen’s characters aren’t plotting about paisa-pyar-shaadi, they are found huddled in the drawing-room, gossiping about the weather and the lace on neighbour’s gown). Jane Austen died at 41. In her brief life, she wrote only about what she knew most intimately—the lives of women and men of rural England. But her storytelling has magically transcended the hyperlocal, becoming relatable to all of us worldwide. Her heroines are our very own mummies
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Saraswati Giri, Paharganj General by The Delhi Walla - December 2, 20240 Portrait of a sanyasi. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] She is sitting in a café in backpackers’ Paharganj, busy over a plate of stuffed paratha and super-spicy mixed achar. The lunch accompaniments include a glass of steaming garma-garam chai and a pack of beedis. She is obviously a regular to the place, for the young café owner is chatting with her after the manner of a long-time acquaintance, addressing her respectfully as Mata ji. In her 70s, Victoria grew up in Andalusia in Spain. She first arrived in India in the 1970s, and since then has been coming frequently to our land, often staying for long continuous stretches of time. Once she lived for a year in her beloved Kashi. Some
City Life – The Capital City Minstrels, Humayun Road General by The Delhi Walla - November 26, 2024November 26, 20240 A city choir is celebrating its 30th anniversary [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] At first impression, it seems to be a regular adda of close friends. Some people are casually chatting under the courtyard tree. Some are hanging around the chai table. Some are daintily manoeuvring the garma-garam bread pakoras brought by Nisha and Pallav—this being the couple’s turn to get the snacks. On the other hand, the generous Tanisha didn’t have to but she anyway got homemade brownies for everyone. While Vinita’s bindaas red bag is striking a perfect jugalbandi with her snow-white hair. And in the courtyard’s far-flung corner, away from chai and bread pakodas, Nathalie is quietly playing the flute. These all are singers of The
City Life – Living in Extreme Delhi Pollution, Around Town General by The Delhi Walla - November 24, 2024November 24, 20240 Profiles in pollution. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] On Monday morning this week in November 2024, the UNESCO World Heritage monument of Humayun Tomb vanished. The view was claimed by a relentless smog so thick that you could have cut it with a knife. That fateful day, Delhi’s Air Quality Index remained in the “severe plus” category, almost touching the dreadful maximum figure of 500. It was the second-worst air quality recorded since AQI tracking began in 2015, according to the Central Pollution Control Board. During the ensuing days, The Delhi Walla tracked a few Delhiwale from varied walks of life who have been obliged to expose themselves daily to the city’s toxic air, with no succour or respite. The
City Hangout – Palika Bazar Terrace Garden, Connaught Place General by The Delhi Walla - November 15, 20240 A re-landscaped garden. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Reclined along the grass, a loner in white kurta-pajama is lazily looking up at the moon. Steps away, a masked gent is strolling with hands folded on chest. The crowd in the garden also comprises a pair of romantic couples, a bunch of people huddled in a close circle, a woman with a book, a man with a bouquet… plus scores of folks staring raptly at their mobile phone screens. This evening, the garden above the underground Palika Bazar—sometimes called Palika Bazar terrace, as well as terrace garden— is strewn with discarded chip packets. The unfortunate litter tells a lot about us Delhiwale. That said, the park, newly re-landscaped by the New