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Month: May 2015

City Season – The Sulky Amaltas Trees, Hailey Road

by The Delhi Walla - 6

The summer disappointment. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This is a most unusual summer. There is only a little yellow here, and that too pale. The Delhi Walla is walking on central Delhi’s Hailey Road, an avenue lined on both sides with Amaltas trees, which blossom every summer with their customary yellow flowers. Like the preceding years, the white-hot season of 2015 is full of brutal marvels--a zebra crossing near Safdarjung Hospital melted under the baking sun. One thought one could console oneself by turning to the yellow flowers of Hailey Road. But the Amaltas trees here have stabbed us in the back. Only a few of them are blooming, that too halfheartedly. These were the same pavements that overwhelmed our senses

City Life – Rain Basera, Chandni Chowk

by The Delhi Walla - 1

The home for the homeless [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] An abode that comes alive when birds return to their nests—this is the poetic imagery that the term rain basera evokes in an online dictionary. To the prosaic, however, a rain basera is a government-supported night shelter where the homeless sleep. In Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, one basera looks like an improvised cabin. Posters with heartfelt messages are stuck on the walls. “I have everything; yet I have nothing,” says a handwritten message in Hindi. Another offers consolation: “This too shall pass.” The shelter is a stone’s throw from the historic Sis Ganj Gurdwara. It is late evening and it is cacophonic. Drivers honking non-stop, desperately trying to inch their way forward

Letter from Paris – The Reluctant Proustian, Marais

by The Delhi Walla - 1

Proust's reader in Proust's city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is a man of another time. On streets, he is shocked to see women with cigarettes. At home, he paints, and plays piano and cello. In drawing rooms, he animates the polite gentry with his gentle humor. In bazaars, he looks out for old objects. And he is embarrassingly chivalrous--he always enters the restaurants first not only to keep the door open for you but also to save you from the trouble of negotiating with the waiter for the ideal table. Of course he is as courteous to waiters as he would be to the gentlemen of the Jockey Club. And his standards are set a little too high. He

City Hangout – Second-hand Books of Paharganj, Central Delhi

by The Delhi Walla - 5

Finding thrill in unexpected places. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some go to Paharganj, the backpackers’ ghetto in central Delhi, to have emergency love with lonely foreigners. The Delhi Walla goes for novels they leave behind in the second-hand bookstores there. Take my latest conquest – Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera. It has a naked woman on the cover. Through inscriptions and jottings scribbled on the paperback’s mildewed pages, I present you its biography. This copy was published by Alfred A. Knopf in USA in 1989. Next year, on July 27, at Flaggstaff café in Sheridan, Wyoming, one Patrick O’ Neil gifted it to Gertrude Flannery, a woman with long brown hair. Two-and-a-half years later Gertrude married Ronald

Our Self-Written Obituaries – Himanshu Verma, Lado Sarai

by The Delhi Walla - 0

The 74th death. [Text by Himanshu Verma; photo by Mehar Jyrwa] Lurking like a cheeky phantom in the country’s art and fashion world, he was the Saree Man of India. Himanshu Verma's mad eclectic work stood at the cusp of traditional aesthetics and contemporary creativity. That said, Mr Verma was always unsure about what exactly he ought to do - curate, create or simply be an artistic parasite. As a result, he ended up doing a lot, and some of those achievements turned out to be moderately significant - like re-appropriating the saree as a male garment. He also created India’s first saree museum. In the initial years of his saree-wearing career Mr Verma was the only man in Delhi spotting the wondrous

Letter from Paris – La Hune is Closing, Saint-Germain-des-Prés

by The Delhi Walla - 0

Death of a bookshop. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Stop the clocks. Silence the pianos. The double-storey La Hune is to shut down permanently. Tucked in the heart of the most beautiful part of Paris, it is one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world. “We are closing very soon,” says the young man behind the cash counter at La Hune bookstore. “It’s our owner’s decision,” he adds, pointing to posters on the glass door announcing La Hune’s impending closure on 14 June, 2015 at 20.00 hours. The death notice feels as unreal as the evening sky of Paris during September evenings. Opened in 1949 (though not in its present address), La Hune is as much of an institution

Delhi Archives – JLN Stadium Station, Near Lodhi Road

by The Delhi Walla - 0

[Digging out old stories from The Delhi Walla] Most Delhiwallas have grown to think of Metro stations as places to push each other into rail coaches. The Jawaharlal Nehru (JLN) Stadium station in central Delhi is different. A cynic might mock it as a symbol of world-class Delhi. A diehard optimist might plug it as the perfect getaway from the pushy Delhiite. “Not many people come here,” says a guard. “It doesn’t see much crowd,” says the clerk at the token counter. But the station has been designed to handle great crowds. As seen on a display board: Extra-large staircases have been provided at all the five entry points for the smooth movement of the commuters. While the staircases at other stations are 2.4

Atget’s Corner – 806-810, Delhi Photos

by The Delhi Walla - 0

The visible city. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi is a voyeur’s paradise and The Delhi Walla also makes pictures. I take photos of people, streets, flowers, eateries, drawing rooms, tombs, landscapes, buses, colleges, Sufi shrines, trees, animals, autos, libraries, birds, courtyards, kitchens and old buildings. My archive of more than 25,000 photos showcases Delhi’s ongoing evolution. Five randomly picked pictures from this collection are regularly put up on the pages of this website. The series is named in the memory of French artist Eugène Atget (1857-1927), who, in the words of a biographer, was an “obsessed photographer determined to document every corner of Paris before it disappeared under the assault of modern improvements.” Here are Delhi photos numbered 806 to 810. 806. Hauz Khas Village 807. Janpath 808.

Letter from Paris – Hazrat Marcel Proustuddin’s Dargah, Père Lachaise Cemetery

by The Delhi Walla - 2

The secret origins of Marcel Proust. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] O Sheikh Marcel, bless us so that we all can write like you. The Delhi Walla is in the dargah of Hazrat Marcel Proustuddin in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. This is the principal stop in my Proustian pilgrimage to Europe. However, I had no need to travel so far from Delhi. It is a truth universally acknowledged among Proustians across the world that Hazrat Proustuddin (may peace be upon him) was actually buried in Delhi--in the little graveyard next to Hazrat Nizamuddin’s Chilla, just adjacent to Humayun’s Tomb. But depend upon the West Europeans to colonise all our treasures. Not only did they change our saint’s name to Marcel

Our Self-Written Obituaries – Anamika Chatterjee, Chittaranjan Park

by The Delhi Walla - 1

The 73rd death. [Text by Anamika Chatterjee; photo by Sajay Warrier] On the day she passed away, Anamika Chatterjee was found gorging happily on several plates of mutton chops and fish cutlets in the Bengali den of Chittaranjan Park in New Delhi. A journalist by profession, Ms Chatterjee always feared penury. “Scribes who do not die on the field, die looking at their bank balance at the end of a long career,” she often said, without a hint of a smile on her face. When not fretting about money, or the lack of it, she thrived on conversations where her voice silenced others. This was instrumental in driving several colleagues and companions away. Every time she lost a friend, Ms Chatterjee would

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