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Year: 2011

City Reading – The Delhi Proustians – I, Indian Coffee House

by The Delhi Walla - 19

A la recherche du temps perdu. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] For a long time I would try to sit down with In Search of Lost Time, a seven-volume novel by the French writer Marcel Proust. In my most successful attempt, I managed to finish the first two volumes – Swann’s Way and Within a Budding Grove. Some parts were comical, some had the lightness of a gossipy tabloid, and some were excruciatingly descriptive. Although I did not pick the third volume that time, Marcel Proust’s novel made me feel closer to the world. His easy conversational language showed me how we are shaped by many illusions borne out of love and jealousy, architecture and music, painting and literature, food and

Mission Delhi – Muhammed Iftikhar, Jamat Khana Mosque

by The Delhi Walla - 8

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] 5.25 am. The sky is still black. It’s freezing. Holding the microphone close to his lips, he opens his mouth to recite the azaan, and... time stops. The Delhi Walla is in Jamat Khana, a mosque built on one corner of the sufi shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah. I’m watching Muhammed Iftikhar, a 21-year-old Koran teacher, call the faithful to perform fajr. It’s the first of the five prayers that Muslims enact daily. Mr Iftikhar’s head is shielded from the cold by a white cap and a black-and-white kifayah. His eyes are closed, as a soft, lyrical sound emerges from him. Allahu Akbar [God is great] Lifting

City Notice – The Delhi Proustians

by The Delhi Walla - 9

A la recherche du temps perdu. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] According to an article in The New York Times Book Review: “When Marcel Proust was asked by a French newspaper how he would spend his last hours on earth if he knew that a great catastrophe was about to end his life, he replied that he would throw himself at the feet of Miss X, go to the Louvre and take a little excursion to India.” The Delhi Walla brings Marcel to India. I’ve started a reading group called The Delhi Proustians. Every Sunday noon the club members will settle down on the torn sofas of the Indian Coffee House, Connaught Place, to read Proust’s 7-volume novel In Search of Lost Time. Duration:

City Event – Indian Languages Festival, India Habitat Centre

by The Delhi Walla - 1

Meeting of voices. [Text and photo of India Habitat Centre by Mayank Austen Soofi] Three days, 10 sessions, 13 Indian languages, 60 writers. The first Samanvay festival of Indian languages will be hosted in Delhi by the India Habitat Centre in partnership with Delhi Press and Pratilipi Books from 16-18 December, 2011. “We are bringing writers from different languages on to a central platform that will showcase the richness and innovation taking place in Indian languages,” says Satyanand Nirupam, an associate editor, Sarita, Delhi Press, who designed and conceptualized the festival. “The aim is to provide a bridge for Hindi and English speakers to what is happening in, say, Oriya.” The baatcheet (conversation) in the first session of the festival will include two Jnanpith

City Culture – De Bhasar, Connaught Place

by The Delhi Walla - 7

The philosophy of nonsense. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] 'Fuckass.' The Delhi Walla saw this calligraphy in the middle circle of N-Block, Connaught Place, Delhi’s colonial-era commercial district. It is depicted on a white paan-stained wall, whose paint is peeling. Immediately below is the anatomical sketch of a woman. This is the second instance that I have come face-to-face with De Bhasar movement in Delhi. (Click here to view the first exhibit.) According to Wikipedia, De Bhasar or Bhasarism is a cultural movement that began in Nantes, France, during the post 9/11 Gulf War, reaching a tipping point between 2007 to 2009. The movement involves graphic designs and literature, which concentrates its anti-sentimental politics by rejecting aesthetic birth-control measures through anti-catholic

Mission Delhi – 50 Faces, Around Town

by The Delhi Walla - 3

The faces of Delhi. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] On November 11, 2011, The Times of India carried a news story: Researchers to preserve city's oral history NEW DELHI: Museums have for long recorded the tangible heritage of a city; the bricks and mortar with which the city was built. But can a museum capture the idea of a city, or its memories? Can a museum capture the life of a city in transition? This is precisely what an ambitious new project sets out to do. In a possible first for India, a group of scholars, academicians and researchers from the Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK) at Ambedkar University Delhi have embarked on the Citizen's Memory Project, a digital archive of the

City Moment – The Woman’s iPad, Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah

by The Delhi Walla - 2

The beautiful Delhi instant. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One cold evening The Delhi Walla saw a burqa-clad woman in the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, the 14th century Sufi saint. The shrine is in central Delhi. The woman was sitting outside Hazrat Nizamuddin's tomb, amid pilgrims of her sex. A notice on the door said: Women are not allowed inside. Unlike men, the burqa-clad woman could not step into the chamber to bow her head at the saint’s tomb. However, she was trying to take its photo through her iPad's still camera. Positioning the tablet towards the door, she was moving it around to get a clear view of the Sufi’s grave, draped in colorful sheets and red roses. Engrossed in the

City Books – On the Decline of Shahjahanabad

by The Delhi Walla - 3

Two books on the Walled City. [Text by Mayank Austen Soofi] In the mid-19th century, Shahjahanabad was the civilizational heart of the Mughals. The limits of their capital were guarded by a rampart of random rubble that protected it from the surrounding wilderness. The inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of music, poetry, food, women and wealth. The emperor appeared to possess sovereign authority, but devolved on the East India Company all the executive powers of government. In the summer of 1857, a revolt plunged Shahjahanabad into chaos. A siege of four months followed. Havelis were pillaged, homes looted and thousands massacred. The British then took over the Qila-e-Mubarak (Red Fort), exiling the emperor, killing the princes, and destroying many palace-pavilions inside the

City Landmark – St Paul International Book Center, Connaught Place

by The Delhi Walla - 3

Jesus loves you. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Halleluyah. St Paul International Book Center is one of the very few shops in Delhi selling Bibles in all the 22 official languages of India. Situated in an Outer Circle block of the colonial-era Connaught Place, the store was established in 1964 by the Society of St Paul, a religious congregation founded in Italy by Friar Giacomo Alberione, whose black & white photo hangs above the cashier’s desk. The friar faces St Paul; his framed portrait is above the shop’s entrance door. Between them are hundreds of books. The shelves are divided into sections on catechism, spirituality, parenting, saints, and health. The cheapest Bible is priced at Rs 120; the most

City Special – Arundhati Roy in New York City

by The Delhi Walla - 0

Delhi-based author in the heart of the empire. [Photos by Sarahana] While touring the world's most dangerous country, author Arundhati Roy, the greatest living Delhiwalla, talked to its hapless citizens at an event hosted at City University of New York's Graduate Center. Before she took questions, Ms Roy read out a few excerpts from her essay Walking with the Comrades, an account of her stay with the Maoist guerrillas and adivasi villagers in central India. Transcripts: Ruth Gilmore (CUNY): Thank you Arundhati for that amazing reading and the thoughts that you brought to my mind and all of our minds as you described this war against the forest people. One thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot having read some of your

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