City List – The Indian Blood in William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns, On a Firangi’s Delhi Book Delhi by List by The Delhi Walla - October 25, 2015January 21, 20170 Native influences. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla knows of many Delhiwallas who first discovered the beauties of their city through William Dalrymple's travel book City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi. There are also a few Delhiwallas who suffer from the idea of William Dalrymple as a Delhi author. After all, Mr Dalrymple is a foreign import from the land of our former colonisers. Irrespective of your private opinions about the Scottish author--and let them be private for he, along with author Namita Gokhale, handpick authors for the prestigious Jaipur Literary Festival--the truth is that Djinns is one of the most important Delhi books. I present you a list of all the Indian authors, and their books, whom
City Travel – Taj Hotel, Ajmer Travel by The Delhi Walla - October 24, 2015October 24, 20150 The best Taj property. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is called the Taj Hotel but it does not belong to the famous Taj Group of Hotels. Actually, it is not a hotel, just an eatery. And it is largely patronised by fakirs and pilgrims who are too poor to dine elsewhere. The Delhi Walla visited the Taj Hotel in Ajmer, the Sufi town six hours away from Delhi. It is tucked next to a gateway to the great Sufi shrine of Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. The eatery looks like an art gallery. Its wall is decked with paintings of various Sufi shrines, including of Delhi's Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. There is also a painting of Delhi's Jama Masjid, and also of
City Faith – Ravan is Alive, Vasundhara Valley Apartments Faith by The Delhi Walla - October 23, 2015October 23, 20152 The immortal life of the king of Lanka. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is the morning after Dusshera. The king of Lanka is again dead. Ravan was burned last night in the lawns of Vasundhara Valley Apartment, a residential complex in the National Capital Region of Delhi. The late king’s innards are lying across the cold wet grass of late October. A little boy in school uniform is seated on a swing, which is making a creaking sound. The boy is quiet. There is no one else around. It took 20 days and eight people to create the Ravan of Vasundhara Valley Apartments. Everyday, school-going friends Prakher Josan, Mahak Goyal, Sejal Sharma, Shubham Sachar, Palash Tayal, Paridhi Narayan Singh, Anurag Nirbhakar
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Shreya Roy, Omaha, USA Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - October 20, 20151 The 105th death. [Text by Shreya Roy; photo by Bodhisattwa Mondal] Shreya Roy was found dead on her freshly scrubbed bathroom floor. For her young age of 24, Ms Roy thought too much about clean bathrooms, clean white bed-sheets and freshly laundered clothes. The cause of her death was found to be extreme sadness, which had crept up to the corners of her heart. She had been working on an academic paper titled “The hunt for the elusive Tiramisu in Omaha” and intended to get it published to attract more Tiramisu-bakers in Omaha. She also had been continually sad about not being able to wear her Delhi-styled clothes too often. Her neighbors did mention that she wore overtly colorful clothes and very
City Life – Refugee Status, Majnu ka Tila Life by The Delhi Walla - October 18, 20151 Live from Lhasa. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The way home may not be the way back. Tenzin Kunchok, 34, has never set foot in her homeland. “Maybe someday,” says Ms Kunchok, who co-runs a travel agency in Majnu ka Tila, also referred to as MT—Delhi’s famed enclave of exiled Tibetans. Born long after her country was occupied by China in 1959, Ms Kunchok has no illusions. “I don’t see freedom happening in my lifetime.” Recalling that she was very active in the “independence movement” during her college years in Delhi University, she says, “Now, I need to pay attention to my life and career.” Ms Kunchok’s dilemma is echoed by Tibetans of her generation who were born in India to parents raised
City Landmark – Nini KD Singh’s The Bookshop, Jor Bagh Market & Khan Market Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - October 14, 2015October 14, 20150 The portrait of a marriage. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] A lone customer steps in. Miles Davis is gently filling the hushed corners. The doorman stands erect at his post in a brown safari suit, and an elegant woman sits at the counter. She is surrounded by books—on shelves, in display cabinets, stack after inviting stack. This is The Bookshop, an institution as genteel as its posh address. Jor Bagh Market is that rare place in the Capital that shunned the rat race to become a bazaar. Urban freneticism is not allowed here. Big cars glide over speed breakers. Presswallas iron clothes under giant trees. The stillness is broken briefly by laughter from the Sarvodaya Vidyalaya school nearby. The surrounding bungalows stand
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Anu Chopra, Ahmadabad Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - October 13, 2015October 13, 20150 The 104th death. [Text and photo by Anu Chopra] Anu Chopra died of a major heart attack at her poker table in Ahmadabad, Gujarat. The evening had started brilliantly. Ms Chopra was winning one round after another. Eventually, she had four of a kind in cards and then she just couldn't withstand the excitement and slumped on the chair. The first thought that crossed the mind of her surprised friend, sitting next to her, was—“Anu still doesn't dye her hair! The roots are so black. Eek, her paunch... like a pregnant whale!” But the friend quickly wiped away those thoughts and tried to look somber. Ms Chopra was 57. She leaves behind her husband and two daughters. Besides being
City Monument – An Obscure Lodhi Tomb, Lado Sarai Monuments by The Delhi Walla - October 12, 2015October 12, 20152 The queen of the evening. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Nobody knows who is buried here. It is not grand, but it is extremely exquisite. And you will see no tourists, no lovers, so typical of Delhi's more well-known monuments. This unnamed Lodhi-era tomb in South Delhi's Lado Sarai is unusually marvelous because each evening it manages to transcend its seemingly insurmountable beauty. As the sun starts to set somewhere beyond Mehrauli, the old building loses the sense of its glorious past, if there was any. Instead, it transforms into a plaything for the neighbourhood. People of the locality soak the monument and its immediate vicinity with the essence of their intimate lives. The Lodi-era ruin becomes a corner of their
City Style – The Message of the Dresses, India Fashion Week, Okhla Style by The Delhi Walla - October 11, 2015October 11, 20153 Searching for the stylish. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] All of these costumed people are looking awe-inspiring. Some look like the photo spreads of Vogue Paris. The Delhi Walla is in the National Small Industries Corporation Grounds in South Delhi’s Okhla. It’s the penultimate day of the India Fashion Week. All around: sandals, pendants, haircuts. See that woman in white collars, that man in blue trousers. Some men here are so intensely feminine; some women so delicately masculine. The dresses here give the impression of a higher aim. Every pristine pattern of an embroidery work, every unexpected color on a sleeve calls out to the possibilities of beauty in our lives. The new dresses give hope that there is perhaps a
The Biographical Dictionary of Delhi – Chandan Singh, b. Tehri, Uttarakhand, 1930 Biographical Dictionary by The Delhi Walla - October 10, 2015October 10, 20153 Author Khushwant Singh's longtime cook. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Chandan Singh, 85, has a kind of sculpted face that won’t look out of place in a room filled with death masks of Roman emperors who had lived up to a great age. Mr Singh was a longtime cook to author Khushwant Singh who died in March 2014 at the age of 99. He served the celebrated author for 60 years. The capital’s important people, who routinely attended Khushwant Singh’s famous evening soirees at his drawing room in the colonial-era Sujan Singh Park, had grown used to nibble at what Chandan Singh would made for them in the kitchen. On Khushwant Singh’s last day on 20 March, Mr Singh had served