City Portraits – 100 Delhiwallas & Proust, New Year Special Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - December 31, 2013January 1, 20142 Celebrating a century. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The year 2013 was special. The Delhi Walla finished reading all the seven volumes of Marcel Proust's wildly entertaining novel In Search of Lost Time. 2013 was also the centenary year of Swann’s Way, the book’s first volume, which was published in Paris in 1913. To celebrate the hundred years of Lost Time, I took portraits of one hundred Delhiwallas, and they all posed after Marcel’s famous photo taken around 1900 by photographer H. Martinie. Not all the women and men who so graciously agreed to my request to be photographed traced the exact gestures of our beloved writer - the asthmatic novelist had his delicate hand gracefully supporting his cheek. But I hope that
City Season – Winter Sun, Connaught Place General by The Delhi Walla - December 28, 2013December 28, 20131 Spring in the winter. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi winter is composed of thick fog and gray skies. But The Delhi Walla is in a park in Connaught Place and the December sky is clear blue. The sunrays are rebelliously pressing through the cold air. A bearded man is lying on the wet greenish-brown grass; he is reading Madhur Kathaein -- the Hindi magazine's cover shows a special issue on sex-change surgeries. A band of shoe shiner kids are enjoying a break with Coca Cola, their wooden shoeshine kits arranged carelessly around them. A partially bald man is sitting on the park’s green railing, his back turned towards the Colonial-era Regal Cinema building. An elderly shoe shiner is squatting
Letter from England – Kaloo, Part II Life by The Delhi Walla - December 25, 2013December 25, 20131 Life in a new land. [Text by Mayank Austen Soofi; photos from Marina Bang] Can a Delhi dog feel at home in the smog-free English countryside? In October 2013, The Delhi Walla described his farewell meeting with Kaloo, a former street dog who was preparing to leave our city for a new home in England. Kaloo’s parents were moving from their bungalow in central Delhi’s Jorbagh to the United Kingdom. Kaloo’s mother Marina told me: "In England, Kaloo will live in a village in the Oxfordshire countryside in a garden adjoining a paddock. Instead of Lodhi Gardens, he’ll enjoy walks beside the river Thames, and — along with many Japanese tourists — strolls through the churchyard of St Mary’s, Cholsey, where Agatha Christie is
City Hangout – Café Lota & Other Such Places, Around Town Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - December 24, 2013December 27, 20133 Delhi's artsy cafes. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] There is acres of space between the restaurant tables, making each one its own little universe — art students economize by sharing a few snacks, the NGO activists bemoan the general state of powerlessness over lazy power luncheons, and well-heeled Europeans in cashmere stoles and white pearl necklaces quietly enjoy the Delhi winter. Though it is inside the National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum on Bhairon Marg, far from malls, markets and offices, Café Lota has become a talking point among Delhi's artsy circle since its opening in October 2013. The Delhi Walla wasn’t surprised. The outdoorsy place is flooded with light that streams in through the bamboo-slatted roof propped on an iron frame. The
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Supriya Anand, Noida Sector 44 Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - December 22, 2013February 27, 20141 The Proustian self-introspection. [By The Delhi Proustians] The Proust Questionnaire represents a form of interview that owes its structure to answers given by French novelist Marcel Proust, the author of In Search of Lost Time, at two birthday parties that he attended at ages 13 and 20 in the late 19th century. In early 2013, The Delhi Proustians started taking Les confidences de salon (Drawing room confessions) around the city to explore people’s lives, thoughts, values and experiences. The series involves interviews across Delhi and is conducted by writers Manika Dhama and Mayank Austen Soofi. For the fifteenth installment of Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire, Supriya Anand, an entrepreneur, made confessions to Manika at her home in Sector 44, Noida, a Delhi suburb. Your favorite virtue or
City Landmark – Steam Engine, Copernicus Marg Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - December 20, 2013December 20, 20132 Made in London. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This little steam engine looks like a toy, but it is real and has a name – MTR No. 1. The maroon locomotive in central Delhi’s India Gate circle has a silver grey star painted on the front; the coupling rods, too, are painted the same shade. The black chimney is disproportionately large. With no leading wheels, the engine has four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles, and two trailing wheels on one axle. Installed outside the gates of the butterfly-shaped Baroda House on Copernicus Marg, MTR No. 1 guards the headquarters of the Northern Railway; a tiny landscaped garden is built around it. A notice board features a badly-written biography. Made
City Season – Cold Mist, Jama Masjid General by The Delhi Walla - December 18, 2013December 18, 20134 The winter’s tale. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One freezing December morning the unthinkable happened. Jama Masjid vanished. The Delhi Walla tried hard to look for the grand Mughal-era mosque but it had left the city. Shivering with cold, as I came closer to where the monument used to be, I gradually perceived a flimsy impression of grey-seeming stairs, pillars, gateways, towers and domes. It was probably an illusion that drew sustenance from the fact that the red sandstone mosque had stood on this patch of land for more than three centuries. Saddened by our city's great loss, I turned into an alley that was crowded with people in blankets and monkey caps. Looking upwards, I discovered that the rooftops on both
Delhi Proustians – Swann’s Way, Anniversary Edition Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - December 17, 2013December 17, 20131 On turning 100. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Of course you have read this book. But not everybody is like you. Apparently a large part of the world is scared of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, a seven-volume novel that has more than a million words and more than 200 characters. Written in French, the novel reached a milestone in November 2013 when its first and perhaps most widely-read volume, Swann’s Way, completed 100 years. In time for the centenary celebrations, the US-based Yale University Press published the first extensively annotated edition of this volume. It includes substantial corrections and revisions of the original English version that is itself considered a classic. The book has been annotated by William C.
Mission Delhi – Madhusudan Srivastava, Vasundhara Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - December 16, 2013December 17, 20135 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] An amateur musician, he is sitting silently on the stairs. The Delhi Walla meets Madhusudan Srivastava in an apartment complex in suburban Vasundhra. “My friend and I have composed a song; you may hear it on Youtube,” he says. “It’s dedicated to Nirbhaya.” In his 20s, Mr Srivasatva, a software engineer in a multinational company, is referring to the symbolic name of a 24-year-old woman described in newspapers as ‘the Delhi gang rape victim’. In December 2012, she was returning home with her friend after watching Ang Lee’s Life of Pi at a multiplex in south Delhi’s Select Citywalk mall when she was raped and violently assaulted
City Books – Tintin in Delhi, Around Town General by The Delhi Walla - December 13, 2013December 13, 20133 Travails in India. [By Mayank Austen Soofi; the above photo was taken in Calcutta] Tintin has been to Delhi. A creation of Belgian cartoonist Hergé, the famous reporter-adventurer has traveled across the world, including India. Sadly, the red-haired hero and his fox terrier Snowy did not meet with any memorable adventure here; they only spent three hours in Delhi on way to Kathmandu. As most hurry-hurry tourists to our city, they dutifully visited the Qutub Minar and the Red Fort. They also had to deal with one of our rather gutsy stray cows. The Delhi Walla walked past the boy and his dog on the early pages of Tintin in Tibet, first published in the book form in 1960. Incredible Delhi