City Obituary – Delhi’s Great Persian Scholar S.M. Yunus Jaffery is Dead, Ganj Mir Khan General by The Delhi Walla - August 29, 2016September 14, 20163 The death of an age. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] S.M. Yunus Jaffery, Delhi's great Persian scholar, died on 29 August 2016. He was 86. He breathed his last at 4.25 am, the day after a tumor surgery, in Delhi's Apollo Hospital. Mr Jaffrey, who never married, remained friends with an Iranian woman called Manizheh. He had first met her years ago during a study trip to that country. They had fallen in love but could not be united due to various reasons. The central figure in his Old Delhi mansion in the congested Ganj Mir Khan, Mr Jaffrey’s world was peopled with his nephews and nieces, and their families. Mr Jaffrey had retired as the head of the Persian department at Delhi
Mission Delhi – Asif Fehmi, Khwaja Press, Chhatta Sheikh Manglu Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - August 29, 2016August 30, 20164 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Asif Fehmi is walking around the dark hall. This used to be his world, which is now coming to an end. The paint on the blue brick wall has started to flake off. The switchboards are covered with layers of dust. The blades of the ceiling fan are wrapped in cobwebs. An empty red refrigerator stands, with its doors open. A rotating chair with torn plastic sits close to a wooden table, the empty drawers of which are arranged upside down atop it. A tall stack of bundled paper lies in one corner. The two “hand-fed” printing machines are nowhere to be seen. One morning The Delhi Walla meets
Atget’s Corner – 941-945, Delhi Photos Delhi Pics by The Delhi Walla - August 28, 2016August 28, 20160 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 1,00,000 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 941 to 945. 941. Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti 942. India
Home Sweet Home – S. K. Rautray’s Pavement Quarter, Kasturba Gandhi Road Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - August 26, 2016August 26, 20161 A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The sky is blue. The air is cool. The leaves of the neem tree are green. This is an idyllic place to live and it is home to S. K. Rautray. A man of no known employment, he lives here in good seasons as well as in not-so-good seasons when the sky is not blue, the air is not cool and the leaves of the neem tree are not green. One afternoon The Delhi Walla enters Mr Rautray’s living quarter. It is but a few feet of pavement on Kasturba Gandhi Road. Mr Rautray is always seen sitting here at all times of the day. He is here even during the heavy monsoon
City Food – The Final Link of Delhi’s Best Bakery, Wenger’s Cake Shop Food by The Delhi Walla - August 25, 2016August 25, 20162 The cake's end. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is a truth universally acknowledged that a starving Delhi man in want of sugar will always head to Wenger’s Cake Shop in Connaught Place. The capital’s best patisserie is loved by Delhiwallas across the generations. A true Wenger’s aficionado should ideally be able to recite not only the names of all the 70 varieties of pastries, 25 varieties of bread and 22 varieties of chocolates there, but also of the old-time staffers. There is assistant manager Ashok Gupta, salesman Randheer Sharma, the peon Gambux, the confectioner Daya Kishan, and the “English cook” Udai Singh, who died years ago but is still fondly remembered. The preceding passage is lifted from a detailed dispatch The
City Monument – Roshanara’s Tomb, Near Ghantaghar Monuments by The Delhi Walla - August 24, 2016August 24, 20160 A woman’s place. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Roshanara Begum lies buried in the ruins of this 17th century pavilion. Her own brother—Mughal emperor Aurangzeb—sentenced her to death after she was discovered with eight men at her apartment in the Red Fort harem. The irony is that the princess had sided with this brother when he rebelled against their father Shahjahan and the heir anointed, Dara Shikoh, to usurp the throne. While the official Mughal chronicles have kept her out from the principal narrative, Roshanara Begum has been shown more generosity in other versions. In his book The Peacock Throne: The Drama of Mogul India, American historian Waldemar Hansen describes her as “a fiendishly vindictive Salome demanding Dara’s blood, gloating over
Netherfield Ball – Martyr Writer Perumal Murugan Ends Exile With a Courageous Poem on Cowards, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library City Parties by The Delhi Walla - August 23, 2016August 24, 20162 The party secrets. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The ear whisperers are nowhere to be seen. Perhaps this is not their world. One evening The Delhi Walla attends a gathering at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. The solemn-faced people have assembled to mark the end of the brief self-imposed exile of Perumal Murugan, the martyr-writer from Tamil Nadu. At a time when the present right-wing regime is overthrowing the principles of the established order, these left-leaning intellectuals are said to be suffering morally. Indeed, they all are looking as pious as the early Christians. Probably as a mark of disdain for the ruling polyester class, a great number of women are in handloom saris and artisanal sling
City landmark – The Abbey Bookshop, Rue de la Parcheminerie, Paris Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - August 22, 2016August 22, 20161 The English abroad. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is a walking distance from Shakespeare and Company and refreshingly different from that touristy bookstore manned by cold attendants. The Abbey Bookshop in Paris’s Latin Quarter is crammed with lovely new and used books. Many paperbacks are also piled up outside the door. The blue-eyed founder and owner, Brian Spence, looks like Leo Tolstoy. A Canadian émigré, he flashes a welcoming smile if you happen to look at him. He also offers free coffee, which is especially helpful to booklovers with not enough Euros for a coffee in a café. The bookstore is steeped in mood. The tiled floor is cracked in places, the paint on the roof peels off here and
City Food – The Germany Bakery Is Not Shutting Down, Appetite, Paharganj Food by The Delhi Walla - August 21, 2016August 21, 20162 The new life of a sweet landmark. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Can a hyperlocal blog change the world? Hah. Such a blogsite—umm, website, actually—can at least stop the approaching closure of a beloved bakery. The Delhi Walla website will complete 10th anniversary next year in 2017 with the happy satisfaction of being the principal instrument of giving a new life to the much-loved almond honey cake of Appetite German Bakery in the backpackers’ district of Paharganj. In July 2016, I broke the heart of the world in the following story here (an excerpt): It’s shutting down. “The bakery is not giving us good business,” says Muhammed Farid Alam, the café’s manager. “Frankly, we are not good at it.”... The Delhi Walla doesn’t agree.
City Moment – The Pleasures of the Massage Parlor, Mathura Road Moments by The Delhi Walla - August 19, 2016August 19, 20162 The memorable instant. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Lounging barefoot on the pavement, the man is dressed in the bedroom uniform--a white undershirt and a flowery underwear. His white trousers are rumpled around a street post. He is having a massage. The masseur, an elderly man, is wearing a red cap. The Delhi Walla sees them one evening on the busy Mathura Road. They agree to talk but request me not to publish their names. The occasional pedestrians are walking past without pausing to look at this extraordinary scene. After all, not every day you come across a massage parlor on the road. The masseur says he has been in the business for more than 30 years. His father, too,