Photo Essay – Indian Coffee House, Mohan Singh Place

Photo Essay – Indian Coffee House, Mohan Singh Place

Evocation of a vanished time. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Indian Coffee House (circa 1957) expresses its extraordinary romantic atmosphere in its run down furniture. The café is a tribute to the dignity of old times when there…

City Diary - The Delhi Walla Books and Some Unlucky Delhiwallas

City Diary – The Delhi Walla Books and Some Unlucky Delhiwallas

It’s a beautiful and ugly city. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Life changes in a week. On September 21, 2010, The Delhi Walla was walking on the Lodhi Road pavement with Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the…

Metro Sketch - The New Lingo

Metro Sketch – The New Lingo

Doors will open on the left. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] In 2002, Delhi Metro started its services by connecting East Delhi’s Shahdara to north Delhi’s Tis Hazari. In 2010, it connected Gurgaon and south Delhi to Connaught…

City Moment – The Delhi Walla Books, Around Town

City Moment – The Delhi Walla Books, Around Town

The beautiful Delhi instant. [Text by Mayank Austen Soofi; pictures by Marina Solveig Bang] One rainy evening, The Delhi Walla was at the lobby of The Claridges, Aurangzeb Road. There I got the first copies of my four-volume series on…

City Diary – The Delhi Walla Books

City Diary – The Delhi Walla Books

Excited and anxious. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] The bookmarks have come. The books can’t be far behind. On 21 September, The Delhi Walla received an e-mail from his editor at HarperCollins India, which is publishing his first books, a series…

Mission Delhi – Siddhartha Gigoo, Indian Coffee House

Mission Delhi – Siddhartha Gigoo, Indian Coffee House

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Unzipping the leather bag, he takes out the Lenovo laptop, switches it on and opens an image file. “See, the cover,” says Siddhartha Gigoo,…

Memo from Jama Masjid – Shoot Out at Gate No. 3

Memo from Jama Masjid – Shoot Out at Gate No. 3

Anatomy of an attack and its aftermath. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] On the late Sunday morning of September 19, Haji Mian Faiyaz Uddin was watching the rain on Old Delhi’s Jama Masjid when two Taiwanese tourists coming…

City Moment – The Bridegroom’s Procession, Nizamuddin Basti

City Moment – The Bridegroom’s Procession, Nizamuddin Basti

The beautiful Delhi instant. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla was walking one night in Nizamuddin Basti, a 14th century village in the heart of the city. In front of Baoli Gate, one of the two…

Letter from Michigan – On The Delhi Walla Books

Letter from Michigan – On The Delhi Walla Books

An American book lover introduces The Delhi Walla’s books. [By Richard Weiderman] A firangi can never be a Delhiwalla. To qualify one has to have been born in Delhi or been brought up and educated there. He must have assimilated…

City Faith – Eid-ul-Fitr, Shahi Idgah

City Faith – Eid-ul-Fitr, Shahi Idgah

Praying in the rain. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] It was the first time in the living memory of middle-aged Delhiites that rain fell on Eid-ul-Fitr, the Muslim festival that marks the end of Ramzan, the month of…