City Faith – Eid ul Fitr, Chitli Qabar Chowk Faith by The Delhi Walla - August 20, 2012August 20, 20121 Praying in the street. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] There were no women to be seen. (They probably remained inside their homes.) The men filled up the mosques and also the streets to perform the prayers of Eid ul Fitr, the Muslim festival that arrives after 30 days of fasting. The Delhi Walla watched the faithful from a roof in Chitli Qabar Chowk, an intersection in the Walled City of Shahjahanabad. The prayers mats were spread out on alleys that were lined with garbage. The Hindu constables of the Delhi Police stood watching the crowd as it bowed towards Mecca. A woman's face briefly flashed on a window. An old man continued to sit on his portion of the pavement.
City Reading – The Delhi Proustians XXVII, ITO Graveyard Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - August 20, 2012April 17, 20130 A la recherche du temps perdu. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Today is the 27th meeting of The Delhi Proustians, a club for Delhiwallas that discusses French novelist Marcel Proust. Every Monday evening for an hour we read his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. Each week we meet in a new venue to dive into the atmosphere of Marcel’s novel. It is 7 pm and The Delhi Walla is at the Muslim graveyard behind the Times of India building in ITO. I am all set to start the second volume, Within a Budding Grove. A friend lies buried here, somewhere. I have never visited his grave. I did not go to the hospital to see him after he was diagnosed