Photo Essay – The Empty Banquet Hall, Pahari Bhojla Photo Essays by The Delhi Walla - April 26, 2016April 26, 20161 Scenes of silence. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The blue-robed chairs are neatly arranged around tables that are covered with white clothes. This must be the setting for a formal sit-down dinner but there is no one. One evening The Delhi Walla enters a public hall in Pahari Bhojla, a congested Walled City locality. The street is humming with streets sounds of the evening, but inside--utter peace. The hall has roughly-carved pillars; parts of the walls are fashioned into arched designs. It is summer, yet it is not warm. Low-hanging ceiling fans are standing still. The staircase go past paan-stained walls. Large steel tubs, filled with clean dinner plates, are lying discretely in one corner. There are also black water tanks. This
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Simran Jagdev, Ashoka University Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - April 26, 20161 The 121st death. [Text by Simran Jagdev; photo by Srutanjay Narayanan] Simran Jagdev, 24, was found dead in room 615, Women’s Residence at Ashoka University. She was one of the 200 fellows, touted to be the brightest minds in the country, at the prestigious Young India Fellowship. Although there was an expression of contentment on her face, the tear tracks on her cheeks told a different story. She is believed to have died of heartbreak. She held in her hands a copy of Pablo Neruda’s love sonnets, with the page with sonnet XVII dog-eared. On her bed, scattered around her, was a much-used copy of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, her MacBook, few diaries full of personal narratives and poetry, and photographs with friends. Her