City Moment – The Sufi Feminist’s Rebellion, Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya’s Tomb Moments by The Delhi Walla - May 11, 2016May 11, 20165 The memorable instant. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The little girl was in a blue and white frock. Her hairpin was also blue. The flower-shaped rubber bands on her pigtails, too, were a shade of blue. One morning The Delhi Walla saw this girl enter the grave-chamber of Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. It was shocking. The board outside the door clearly says that women are not allowed to enter into this sanctum sanctorum (I have written about this tradition here). Indeed, the shrine’s alert caretakers always stop any woman—even if she is only a few months old—who dares to cross the forbidden line. But this blessed girl, somehow, infiltrated into the banned zone. Nobody noticed this flouting of rules. Amidst
City Monument – Bedil’s Tomb, Pragati Maidan Monuments by The Delhi Walla - May 10, 2016May 10, 20163 The dead poet’s society. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One of the principal pilgrimages of poetry lovers in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan lies in Delhi--the tomb of Mirza Abdul Qadir Bedil. A 17th century Persian poet of Delhi, Bedil was the inspiration of Mirza Ghalib. Delhi's great egostical poet, Ghalib had great esteem for Bedil. He once wrote: Tarz-e-bedil mein rekhta kehna Asadullah Khan, qayaamat hai (to adopt Bedil’s style in Urdu is an extraordinary feat, O Asad!) Venerated by Muhamamd Iqbal, Bedil was also a beloved poet of the assassinated Afghan warlord Ahmad Shah Masood. The Delhi Walla is told that Bedil commands a cult following in parts of Central Asia. There are Bedil extremists in Samarkand. His poems are recited in the tea houses
Mission Delhi – Prahlad Singh Shekhawat, Ajay Guest House, Paharganj Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - May 9, 2016May 9, 20163 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Is he a writer? A novelist? He is tapping on his laptop with full concentration. One night The Delhi Walla spots a man seated alone in Ajay Guest House, a café in the backpackers’ district of Paharganj. The coffee shop is always filled with mostly-white, mostly-young foreigners. This man, however, is as brown as any Indian. He is also not young. His head bend downwards, the man is showing no interest in the immediate world around him. It turns out he is writing on environment. Lifting up his eyes briefly, he responds to my query by saying, “I hope it can be published in one of the newspapers… let’s see.” The man
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Aftab Yusuf Shaikh, Bombay Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - May 9, 2016May 9, 20161 The 127th death. [Text by Aftab Yusuf Shaikh; photo by Shaheer Shaikh] Last Friday, Bombay-based author and poet Aftab Yusuf Shaikh, died in his sleep in this city. He was staying at his usual hotel while on a visit to Delhi. His works are replete with references to Delhi which as he once confessed, “seduced, baffled and tortured” him and now everybody other than him knows the final purpose for which the city was pulling him towards her. Mr Shaikh was always afraid of dying in this rotten city because he was afraid of its history and always suggested that her underworld was more horrifying than of any other place. Mr Shaikh was in the city for the release of his last
City List – The Morning Gifts of City Commuters, Near Barakhamba Metro Station Delhi by List by The Delhi Walla - May 6, 2016May 6, 20161 A woman's friends. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The white-haired homeless woman is seen every morning by commuters in her usual place—a pavement close to Barakhamba Metro Station in Central Delhi’s Connaught Place. There she loudly sings sacred verses from Ram Charit Manas. The holy book is her most beloved possession. The Delhi Walla wrote about Ramrati Singh here in 2014 when she first appeared in what has become her usual spot for morning reading. Quite a few hurried passers-by stop to offer breakfast dishes to Ms Singh, though she herself does not ask for anything. On a recent morning, I stopped to make a note of offerings that Ms Singh received from commuters in the previous one hour. The short list
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Faiza S Khan, Clifton, Karachi Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - May 6, 20160 The 126th death. [Text by Faiza S Khan; photo by Avantika Sujan] Publisher and critic Faiza S Khan died last week at the age of forty-one when she read the words “isn't that just reverse sexism?” in an article causing her head to explode. A feminist whose zeal knew no bounds, there was nothing Ms Khan wouldn’t do for the cause, as long as it didn’t involve having to leave her desk or being nice to other women. One of Ms Khan's professional goals was to battle intellectual snobbery regarding popular culture. She published both literary and commercial works and threw enormous tantrums when one received more critical acclaim than the other. She was known to say “snobbery is just insecurity” on
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Farah Noor, Vasant Kunj Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - May 5, 2016May 5, 20161 The 125th death. [Text by Farha Noor; photo by Shireen Akhtar] Farha Noor died in her dream. She dreamt she was dying. She was found dead on her bed beside a pile of half-read books in five languages and a packet of tobacco, from which she had rolled a cigarette that was only half smoked and left to burn out, like the rest of the lives of the things she lived with. Her neighbors (who did not know her at all) in Vasant Kunj noticed her absence (which was quite normal) despite her main door being unlocked from the outside (which was not normal at all). And so, no one knew that she had died in a dream, a dream that successfully
Delhi Proustians – My Life with Marcel and the Unjustness of Proust’s Great-Grand-Niece Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - May 4, 2016May 4, 20161 Consider the Proustians. [Text by Mayank Austen Soofi; photos by friends] This is personal. French novelist Marcel Proust’s personal archives is to be auctioned by Soethby in Paris. They are being sold by his great-grand-niece. Here’s the news from AFP, dated May 3 2016. Intimate letters, personal photographs and rare manuscripts that once belonged to French writer Marcel Proust will go under the hammer in Paris, Sotheby's auction house said Monday. The collection of some 120 items from the "Remembrance of Things Past" author's personal archives even includes a hand-corrected proof of one of his well-known works. The trove of artefacts, being sold by the writer's 41-year-old great-grand-niece Patricia Mante-Proust, is to be auctioned on May 31. Experts estimate the entire collection will sell for
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Rituparna Sengupta, Govindpuri Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - May 4, 2016May 4, 20160 The 124th death. [Text by Rituparna Sengupta; photo by Srijit Chakravarty] Rituparna Sengupta bore the curse of being a peculiar person with a very common name all her life. Even after her death it took her acquaintances a few weeks to realize which Rituparna Sengupta had stopped communicating since they knew so many. Needless to say, her body had decomposed sufficiently by then and it no longer mattered. But they nevertheless cremated her with full honours, although they are still not entirely sure of her passing away. God bless their well-meaning, clueless minds. Ms Sengupta, died at the ripe age of 45. Given her overtly optimistic nature and enthusiastic approach to life her acquaintances and neighbours in Chittaranjan Park are said to be
City Food – Kwality Special Pudding, Regal Cinema Building Food by The Delhi Walla - May 3, 2016May 3, 20162 The sins of our fathers. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is extremely creamy and is embellished with canned pineapple. Its bulwark is of stale white bread. The Kwality Special Pudding is served in a restaurant of the same name. Opened in 1939 in the Regal Cinema building in Connaught Place, Kwality originated as an ice-cream parlour and went on to specialize in continental and Indian cuisines. It is famed for its chhole bhathure. (One white-haired patron told The Delhi Walla that the standards of this unhealthy and delicious dish remain unchanged.) But the pudding, priced at 250 rupees, could certainly improve itself by being less rich. It could also get better by doing away with canned fruit. Even so, Kwality Special has