100 Things to Do Before You Quit Delhi – Sky & People Watching, Indian Coffee House
The perfect Delhi experience. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The sky always changes its color. It’s just that many of us don’t ever notice it. There are so many things to do when you live in a big city like…
City Season – Signs of Winter, Around Town
A nip in the air. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The world in Delhi changed on the morning of 28 October 2015. “It is finally cold,” said Arshad Ali Fehmi (see above), an Old Delhi resident. He was…
City Obituary – Meraj Ahmed Nizami, Delhi’s Greatest Qawwal, is No More
Passing of an era. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Qawwali, Islam’s sacred Sufi music offered in the shrines of the Indian subcontinent, confronts its biggest tragedy of our time. Meraj Ahmed Nizami, the patriarch of Nizami Khusro Bandhu…
Mission Delhi – Ashutosh Tripathi, The Bookshop
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He looks as solemn as a nuclear scientist. Ashutosh Tripathi is the new face at The Bookshop in Jor Bagh Market. The Delhi Walla meets…
City Food – Browning the Onions, Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti
The pyre. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The younger cook is standing by the fire. The elder cook is peeling the onions. The Delhi Walla meets them one evening in central Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti. The cooks…
City List – The Indian Blood in William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns, On a Firangi’s Delhi Book
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…
City Travel – Taj Hotel, Ajmer
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…
City Faith – Ravan is Alive, Vasundhara Valley Apartments
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,…
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Shreya Roy, Omaha, USA
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…
City Life – Refugee Status, Majnu ka Tila
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…
Recent Comments