A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla is in the private study of Justice Leila Seth, who died four months ago (5 May 2017). This quiet room, redolent with memory, “was her heart and…
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla can’t cycle more than 30 minutes on an exercise bike, but rickshaw pullers somehow manage constant pedalling day in, day out. What’s…
The definitive North Indian version. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The romantics celebrate the Indian Coffee House for its turbaned waiters and torn rexine sofas (which, alas, have been replaced by steel chairs). The idealists, who believe that…
A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Old Delhi’s Shamim ud Din loves machinery. So much so that he decided, years ago, that he needed a tiny dark room near the family residence to store it in….
Music as objects. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Here, you’ll make friends with the Dama from Tripura, which looks like a tapering dholak (drum). And there’s the Sanitar, a kind of lute from Kashmir, with a hollow resonator…
Delhi by list. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] You may know what it’s like at Central Delhi’s Sadar Bazaar, so congested you can literally crash into somebody. The Delhi Walla almost stumbled over Muhammed Jaafar, a carpenter sitting…
The great chef’s life in Delhi. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Nobody dares to offers khichri to guests. This rice-and-dal combination is best eaten in complete privacy, as comfort food, or when one is suffering from an upset…
Passing of a legend. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Mona Ahmed, India’s most iconic transgender person, died on the night of 9 September 2017. She would have turned 82 in November. Ms Ahmed was the principal subject of…
The visible city. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi is a voyeur’s paradise and The Delhi Walla also makes pictures. I take photos of people, streets, flowers, eateries, drawing rooms, tombs, landscapes, buses, colleges, Sufi shrines, trees, animals, autos, libraries, birds,…
Inside the icon. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It’s so very tempting to regard that gleaming metro train zipping past the Lord Hanuman statue as a near collision of ancient beliefs with the uneasy ethos of the modern….
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