City Food – The Morally Appalling Carrot Cake, The Big Chill Cakery, Khan Market
Disgracefully delicious. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is morally appalling. The carrot cake at The Big Chill Cakery bakery in Delhi’s Khan Market has to be the most politically incorrect dish in this city of vast disparities….
Mission Delhi – Sooraj Mal, IFFCO Chowk
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] His mustache is so large and dense and it twirls so royally like that of a Maharaja that he perfectly fits the stereotype of a…
City Moment – The Overworked Music Men of the Yellow Line, Rajiv Chowk Metro Station
The memorable instant. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] They were apparitions in golden dhotis and pink jackets. One late night The Delhi Walla saw members of the Kirti music band. They were sitting inside a Metro rail coach….
City Landmark – Victor Bros, Connaught Place
A quieter world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Don’t cry for poor dear CP (Connaught Place). The colonial-era commercial district, that world of stately white columns and louvred windows, is now a 21st century muddle of uniformly similar…
City Hangout – Leisure Valley Park, Sector 29, Gurgaon
A bubble in the bubble. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The land of Gurgaon, just across Delhi’s southern border, is a world of dreams. Sky-kissing towers are clustered together in such a way that the place becomes New…
City Monument – Moth Ki Masjid, Near Uday Park
Our neighbourhood ruin. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] As a mosque, it is dead. Prayers are not offered here. As a monument, Moth ki Masjid is full of life. The stone mosque takes its name from moth (beans),…
Atget’s Corner – 976-980, Delhi Photos
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,…
City Season – Finding Poets, etc, in the World’s Most Poisonous Smog, Around Delhi
Life in the world’s most polluted city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] “Fashion in dystopia,” a friend commented while showing The Delhi Walla a photo on her phone of a young woman wearing a mask, the kind one…
City Travel – Into the Homeland of Arundhati Roy’s ‘The God of Small Things’, Kerala
Small things of utmost happiness. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] July in Ayemenem is not a hot, brooding month. The days are not long, though they continue to be humid. The river does not seem to shrink at…
City Monument – Anglo-Arabic School, Near New Delhi Railway Station
Far from the world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is a secret world–exquisite without being ostentatious. The Mughal-era Anglo-Arabic School consists of a cluster of early-18th century buildings. That includes a Sufi shrine, a tomb and a…
Recent Comments