City Hangout – Sunder Nursery, Central Delhi Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - February 10, 20260 Some questions on a beloved park. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Opened in 2018, the 90-acre Sunder Nursery, with its gardens and monuments, swiftly became Delhi’s great escape (photo of the park gardeners’ midday break was snapped last week). Lately, some have expressed discomfort over its ongoing evolution. We confront Ratish Nanda of Aga Khan Trust for Culture, which created and manages the park. The traffic towards Sunder Nursery is impossible! Even for commuters not heading to the park. Was your parking facility an afterthought, or was clogging the access roundabout the plan? A UNESCO World Heritage Site will attract visitors. Across the Humayun’s Tomb–Sunder Nursery–Nizamuddin Basti area, we have conserved 75 monuments, landscaped 200 acres, planted 300 tree species that attract
Mission Delhi – Shourya, Hauz Khas Village Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - February 9, 20260 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] People from across the world come to see this fourteenth-century reminder of the city’s past. The tomb of Emperor Feroze Shah Tughlaq is among Delhi’s great monuments. For Shourya, the monument has never been a destination. It is in fact as much an article of his daily life as the wallpaper in his drawing room. By an accident of birth, he is among the city’s most fortunate residents. 11 years ago, he was born into a family that has been living for generations in Delhi’s tourist-heavy Hauz Khas Village, in a house that directly overlooks the monument. He shares the home with his grandparents, and “Mamma and
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Qamar Syed, Sunday Book Bazar Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - February 6, 20260 Portrait of a citizen. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some places in the city evoke the spirit of a much-thumbed book—creased by time, rich in memory. Delhi’s Sunday Book Bazar is one such place. Held every week at the Mahila Haat exhibition ground on Asaf Ali Road, it is perhaps the country’s finest market for used books. Dating back to the 1960s, when it began in Daryaganj, the bazar has changed locations and evolved with the city. A few booksellers from the bazar’s pioneering days are still manning the bazar. The gracious Qamar Syed is one such presence. This year, he completes fifty years in the iconic market. For the past two decades, he has also served in the top-boss
City Food – Best Samosa, KD’s Kadimi Dukan Food by The Delhi Walla - February 5, 2026February 5, 20260 Snack trail. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] So risky to declare that a phala-phala establishment makes the city’s best samosa. Cautious gourmands hedge their bets with qualifiers—“arguably,” “among the best,” “one of the finest.” After all, any such bold claim is bound to provoke outrage, perhaps even the triumphant presentation of a genuinely superior samosa from someone’s own hyperlocal mohalla. A survey of the city’s thousands of samosa outlets is anyway impossible. Whatever, after months spent sampling samosas across Delhi—at long-time eateries, roadside stalls, cinemas and restaurants—it can be nervously asserted that the city’s finest samosa is to be found at KD’s Kadimi Dukan in south Delhi’s congested Bhogal market. The immediate question is: which samosa? The 100-year-old shop offers samosas
City Hangout – Defence Colony Secrets, South Delhi Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - February 4, 20260 The market's three stars. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It isn’t only Khan Market where Delhi goes to see and be seen. Fashionable crowds also condescend to grace Defence Colony Market with their august presence. Less theatrical than its aforementioned cousin, the neighbourhood market has been extensively surveyed by city chroniclers. Even so, it still holds a few overlooked curiosities—beyond, of course, an unusually high concentration of pharmacies. The first is a deserted relic wedged between Genre Kids Collection showroom and Broadway Drycleaners (the laundry service has been operating since 1959). At street level, the entrance to the two-storey structure is sealed shut by a weather-beaten metal shutter, rusting at the edges. It is the first floor that arrests the eye.
City Obituary – A Bougainvillea Shaving Stall, Chelmsford Road Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - February 3, 20260 On the passing of a place. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is gone. The shaving stall is no longer here. Also gone is the dense hedge of bougainvilleas that roofed over it, turning a dusty stretch of paved footpath into an unexpectedly beautiful site. On a cold, grey evening, the scene in central Delhi’s Chelmsford Road is unrecognisable. Blue construction barricades line the dug-up browned earth. A labourer in yellow hamlet is standing beside a yellow excavator. Arms on hips, he says a flyover is being built. If so, the consolation is that a small, human-scaled world that stood here has been erased to raise something grander, more utilitarian, all for our greater common good. The stall has already been celebrated
City Poetry – Ritu Faridabadi’s Verses City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - February 3, 20260 Poetry in the city. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Ritu Chowdhry began writing poetry while growing up in Kanpur. After her marriage, she took the name Ritu Asthana and moved to Faridabad in the Delhi region, where she has lived for over two decades. Over time, her writing and her identity as a poet became closely tied to the city. Today, she signs her work as Ritu Asthana “Ruhi” Faridabadi. This name reflects her personal and geographical sense of belonging. “Life for a girl, when she is living with her parents, is simpler,” she says this afternoon, over an encounter in a literary academy, where the hushed hall is filled with portraits of dead writers and out-of-use typewriters. Ritu observes
City Walk – Chatta Girdhar Lal, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - February 1, 20260 The Walled City encyclopaedia. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Virtually every old building in Old Delhi is of slim, narrow bricks known as lakhori. A defining component of Mughal-era architecture, these burnt clay bricks once constituted the weight of entire edifices—havelis, gateways, temples, and mosques. Their decline mirrored the decline of the Mughal Empire, though their era ended much later. One such building dominates Chatta Girdhar Lal, a lane that forms part of the larger Gali Arya Samaj (already been chronicled on these pages). While the lane is mostly lined with well-kept modern houses, this old, dilapidated structure stands abandoned. A broken window gapes onto the street, and an arched niche below is filled with discarded plastic bags, sacks, and broken
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Roshan Khatoon, Central Delhi Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - January 29, 2026January 29, 20260 Portrait of a citizen. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] She is finally done for the day. Roshan Khatoon, a housekeeper, has just finished her evening work in a central Delhi household, and is getting ready to leave for home. With an umbrella and pithu bag in hand, she patiently agrees to become a part of our Proust Questionnaire series, in which citizens are nudged to make “Parisian parlour confessions”, all to explore our distinct experiences. Your hero in real life. My husband. We had a love marriage—I first met Salman on Instagram about three years ago. My first husband was not good to me, but Salman loves my three children and takes care of them as if they were his own. My
Delhi Homes – House without a Balcony, Sahibabad Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - January 29, 20260 A home of windows. [Text and photo by Maynak Austen Soofi] Delhi’s outdoors have grown increasingly hostile. Extreme pollution is poisoning the air, summer heatwaves are becoming inhumanely intense, and every year the monsoon inflicts a renewed threat of dengue fever. One victim of this triple whammy is an element of multi-floor housing architecture that is commonly taken for granted. The balcony. Once a cherished outdoor space at home for breathing, observing, and relaxing, the balconies in the city’s residential towers are losing their relevance. Today, they survive mainly as decorative relics. Even those citizens who have the luxury of balcony rarely step into it, keeping themselves secured in AC rooms equipped with air purifiers. Many balconies, in fact, tend to be sealed