Mission Delhi – Shankar, Matia Mahal Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - December 17, 2009September 19, 201411 One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Matia Mahal Bazaar. Midnight. Shutters down. Looking up at the delicate latticework of Old Delhi balconies, he suddenly turns back and stands facing the Jama Masjid. “It’s awe-inspiring,” says Shankar, looking at South Asia’s biggest mosque, built by Mughal emperor Shahjahan. “It’s more a symbol of power than spirituality and yet, when I go inside, I feel calm,” he says, requesting that his family name not be used for this portrait. As someone who has seen Vienna, Madrid, Paris, Prague, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Frankfurt, Budapest, Benares, Lahore, Ladakh, Isfahan, Kashkar, Samarkand, Shanghai, Srinagar, Marrakech, Damascus, Beirut and Ankara, Shankar says, “There are a million cities in Delhi… that’s what
City Living – So Many Delhis General Life by The Delhi Walla - December 17, 2009May 23, 20102 It's too varied. [Text and picture by Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi may be a city but it is as varied as any country. “We have many Delhis,” says Rakhshanda Jalil, the author of Invisible City. “You’ve these oasis of privileges as well as places that are cramped and clamorous. A cordon sanitaire (quarantine line) divides the two.” Sometimes that divide comes in the form of railway tracks. It seperates the leafy Nizamuddin East, an upper crust colony, from the dusty Sarai Kale Khan, a low-income neighbourhood. They could as well be Monaco and Mogadishu. “I’m lucky to have a house here in Nizmuddin East,” says author Sadia Dehlvi, whose roof looks over to Humayun’s Tomb as well as the brick-and-cement skyline of Sarai