The Delhi Walla

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Photo Essay – 1:24am; Jama Masjid

September 29, 2007 · by The Delhi Walla · in Photo Essays

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Celebrating Ramadan night in the old city.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Midnight hour. Jama Masjid – eyes wide shut. Matia Mahal bazaar – split wide open. Kebabs at Al-Jawahar restaurant. Hungry beggars squatting outside. Freedom to eat (the holy fasting time is during the day). A pretty girl asking for alms. A bearded man, with no moustache, lusting for her. Rowdy young men passing lewd comments on other pretty girls. Burka-clad ladies shopping for colorful salwar-kurtas. A hairy man getting his arm-pits shaved in a hair saloon. A boy in skull-cap trying to start his Enfield motorcycle (it’s not starting). A shopkeeper spraying out betel juice. A street ruffian taking out his shirt. Three friends shopping for Rs. 75 shoes. An old man buying underwear. Two young men hugging each other. A stunningly-beautiful woman amidst the crowd. She is walking with her husband. She glances at me. I stare back at her. She averts her eyes. I don’t. She looks again. At me. Allah.

Street Seductions

Colorful Nights

Sex in the Shop

Buy Us Shoes

Neck on the Edge

Bike Buddies

Long Night; No Dream

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One Response

Anonymous · October 1, 2007 at 07:49:00 · →

liked the last photograph, nice post… keep going, mate.Arjun

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The New Yorker on The Delhi Walla

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-delhi-wallas-visions-of-a-possibly-vanishing-india

“Soofi says that Proust is his favorite writer, and his project has, over the years, taken on an increasingly Proustian quality. He has been passing in and out of the same neighborhoods for more than a decade, documenting the minutest social and cultural changes… “–The New Yorker

The New Review, The Guardian, UK

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With 2,748 posts (plus over 19,500 images on Instagram), it (The Delhi Walla) features the Delhi you should see, the Delhi that you never see, the Delhi that lies forgotten and sometimes even the Delhi that will come to be.

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Time Out Delhi

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Biography of The Delhi Walla

Since 2007, Mayank Austen Soofi has been collecting hundreds of stories taking place in Delhi, through writing and photography, for his acclaimed website The Delhi Walla. Every day, Mayank walks around the city with his camera and notebook to track down the part of extraordinary that exists in the seemingly mundane aspects of urban lives. By exploring and documenting the streets, buildings, houses, cuisines, traditions and people of Delhi, his work is also an attempt to give the megalopolis an intimate voice, and to capture the passing of time in this otherwise restlessly changing city.

Mayank is also a daily columnist for Hindustan Times newspaper, and the author of ‘Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi’s Red Light District’ (published by Penguin) and the four-volume ‘The Delhi Walla’ guidebooks (HarperCollins).

Mayank Austen Soofi compulsively publishes texts and photos on his website, Facebook and Instagram. Follow him:

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Write to mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com

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The Rough Guide to Rajasthan, Delhi and Agra

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The Independent

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