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Year: 2010

Memo from Jantar Mantar – Free Dr Binayak Sen

by The Delhi Walla - 3

This is injustice. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] One cold afternoon, The Delhi Walla went to Jantar Mantar after receiving a chain text message the day before on the cell phone: Join citizens’ protest against the conviction of Dr Binayak Sen at 2.30 pm on December 27, Jantar Mantar. Famous for its 18th century solar observatories, Jantar Mantar, close to the parliament, has democratic pretensions. Indians go there to celebrate, to protest and to make their voices heard. The rulers, though, hardly care. Accused of passing messages between Maoists, a rebel group that has declared to overthrow the Indian state, Dr Sen, the 59-year-old health worker and rights activist, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a lower court in Chattisgarh, the central province

Photo Essay – The Shadow People, Lodhi Road

by The Delhi Walla - 7

Homeless in winter streets. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] One cold December midnight, The Delhi Walla was walking on Lodhi Road. It had rained in the day. The homeless people were sleeping on the pavement, which was still wet. The streetlamps had lit up the road, leaving the people in darkness. A few of them were awake. Some were sitting by the fireside. One woman was listening to Hindi film songs on FM 102.6. She was smoking a beedi. There were rings on her fingers; a shawl covered her head. “Why you don’t have a home?” I asked. She shook her head, smiled and said nothing. A little ahead was a woman lying alongside her four children. Three of them were asleep.

City Food – Roasted Peanuts, Around Town

by The Delhi Walla - 1

The soul food for winter. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Peanut roasting is a cold-weather trade on Delhi’s streets. The Bhaiyyas, mostly migrants from the impoverished countryside of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, fill up their carts with popcorn, gajaks and peanuts. In summer, they sell watermelons. In Delhi, peanuts arrive from Gujarat and Rajasthan. The vendors purchase their stock from the wholesale grain bazaar of Khari Baoli, in the Walled City. In December and January, the godowns there are filled with gunny bags of peanuts; sometimes even the pavements are taken over by these sacks. One cold afternoon, The Delhi Walla spotted a teakettle half-buried in a pile of unshelled nuts on the roadside. Peanut bhaiyyas are spread all over the

City Sighting – Arundhati Roy, Hauz Khas Village

by The Delhi Walla - 4

Delhi's most notorious seditionist. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] One evening, The Delhi Walla sighted his most beloved Delhiite – author Arundhati Roy. She was walking down an alley in Hauz Khas Village, south Delhi. Ms Roy was wearing camel-coloured leather slip-on shoes. Her hair – a flamboyant mix of gray and black – was knotted with an orange scrunchie into a neat pull-back. She was carrying a floral-patterned red tote bag with leather handles; the other arm had a brown velvety handbag, and a bright-red plexiglas bangle. Like everything about Ms Roy, her corduroy trouser too had a twist. It wasn’t harem pant; nor did it look like dhoti pant. But it had wide legs; the buttons were on

City Landmark – Walled City Museum, Lahore Gate Chowk

by The Delhi Walla - 1

Delhi's saddest museum. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Opened in 2004, the Walled City museum in Lahore Gate smells of urine. Housed in the Shri Narayan haveli, circa 1929, the windowpanes are broken, the door is unlocked, the halls are empty, the spotlight bulbs are missing and electric switchboards have come off the walls, revealing red, yellow, green and blue wires. The Delhi Walla is carrying a clip from the Indian Express newspaper, dated February 7, 2004. Museum showcasing 350-yr-old history of Walled City Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs Vijay Goel today inaugurated a Walled City Museum, depicting 350-years of the history of the city at Chandni Chowk. Located in Old Delhi’s heart, the traditionally-built private mansion looks

Mission Delhi – Usha Hooda, Hauz Khas Village

by The Delhi Walla - 5

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] It’s mid-morning but it doesn’t matter to her. “Time doesn’t exist in my life,” says painter Usha Hooda as she dabs her brush in a heap of burnt sienna. “I’m 54, I think, but I’m not bothered. If you start believing that you could do only this at this age, that’s the end. You can’t limit yourself, especially for someone in my situation. I’ve cancer.” The Delhi Walla is meeting Ms Hooda at her second-floor studio in Hauz Khas Village, a neighbourhood in south Delhi. Commissioned by a collector, she is painting buzkashi horse riders of Afghanistan with a controlled recklessness. Nimbly moving her brush across the

City Secret – Mangarbani, near Chattarpur

by The Delhi Walla - 3

Delhi’s most beautiful forest. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] You don’t have to fly to Copenhagen or Cancun to save the planet. The other day The Delhi Walla joined Pradip Krishen, author of Trees of Delhi, for an excursion in Mangarbani valley. It is a 100-hectare jungle, mostly consisting of Dhau trees, in Aravalli hills. The solitude of the woods, only a few miles outside south Delhi, is refreshing. The forest is sacred, the trees are worshiped and there are two temples. The valley has a village of Gujjar herdsmen who believe in a mystic called Gudariya Baba. They warn: cut a tree’s branch and get ready for the Baba’s wrath. On Sundays, village children share stories of the invisible

City Moment – Sealed With a Kiss, Paharganj

by The Delhi Walla - 1

The beautiful Delhi instant. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla was one afternoon taking a stroll in a by-lane in Paharganj, a claustrophobic neighbourhood near New Delhi railway station. While the principal street is lined with hotels and cafes targeted towards the foreign tourists, the inner alleys of Paharganj are home to the area’s residents. Reaching at the middle of a street, I witnessed an incredible sight. A shopkeeper, sitting at his hole-in-the-wall store, was chatting with a parrot. The green bird, perched on the store’s counter, was replying to the man in her rehearsed man-bird voice. The conversation continued. After a little while, the man bent down his head and whispered a few words to the parrot.

City Hangout – A Booklover’s Connaught Place

by The Delhi Walla - 5

The definitive Delhi guide for book lovers. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] The book is not dead. Not in Connaught Place, central Delhi’s colonial-era shopping district. One winter afternoon, The Delhi Walla visited all the bookshops in the Inner Circle, Middle Circle and Outer Circle of Connaught Place. At one store, I had masala chai. At another, a peepal tree leaf fell on my shoulder. At one store, the bookseller snubbed me. At another, the bookseller refused to bargain. I did not mind. Here is my guide to the bookstores of Connaught Place. Cambridge Book Depot Founded in 1943 by Sawan Ram, the shop was partitioned 44 years later by his descendants. The gallery-like space stocks (almost) every new talk-of-the-town book. But

The Biographical Dictionary of Delhi – Ronald Vivian Smith, b. Agra, 1938

by The Delhi Walla - 1

The definitive directory of famous Delhiites. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Of all the authors who made Delhi the central theme of their literary lives, the case of Ronald Vivian Smith is the most intriguing. He has given much to the city, but the city has held back. Author of several slim volumes on Delhi’s monuments and street life, Mr Smith has also produced novels and poetry. Yet he has been denied the eminence enjoyed by other Delhi chroniclers such as Ahmad Ali, Khushwant Singh and William Dalrymple. Common to all prolific writers, Mr Smith's work range from excellent to crap, just like Khushwant Singh's. But Mr Singh is a star, Mr Smith isn’t. At Bahrisons Booksellers in Khan Market, Mr

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