City Obituary – The Death of Prince Book Stall, Paharganj Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - August 31, 20170 The passing of a bookshop. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sad news. Prince Book Stall has become history. One of the only two surviving secondhand bookshops in the backpackers’ district of Paharganj, it was opposite Khanna Cinema (which shut down more than a decade ago). Prince closed down without a fuss. The Delhi Walla discovered its demise last week on discovering a gleaming new travel agency office in its place. It came as a shock. I was so used to seeing the heap of secondhand Lonely Planet guidebooks put up so precariously on the bookstore’s counter. “I vacated the shop on August 4,” owner Manoj Kumar Arora, aka Bittu, told me on phone. He had opened Prince in 1994. “People were just not
City Neighborhood – Tihar Village, West Delhi Regions by The Delhi Walla - August 30, 20171 Not the famous prison, if you please. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Tihar Jail hardly needs any introduction. It is, after all, the largest prison complex in Asia, tending to thousands of inmates in various stages of “correction”. Behind its concrete walls in west Delhi you find the grim gamut of the incarcerated — from murderers and rapists to perhaps a few unhappy souls who shouldn’t be there at all. The huge prison has only been around since 1958. Meantime, The Delhi Walla is checking out something far older, wandering the rutty lanes of Tihar Village — from which the prison derives its name. It’s like any of the other 247 villages in Delhi. The lanes are lined with tiny grocery shops while
City Life – Street Dogs of H. Nizamuddin East, Central Delhi Life by The Delhi Walla - August 29, 20170 A home for the houseless. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Who wouldn’t want to live in Nizamuddin East? This outrageously wealthy enclave in central Delhi is nestled amid gardens and monuments, including the grand Humayun Tomb. Calling Niz East home are numerous celebrities such as novelist Vikram Seth and politician Sheila Dikshit. And even the daughter of the last Nawab of Rampur. A great place to settle down, in other words. The Delhi Walla can’t recommend the neighbourhood too highly if you can manage astronomical rents. If not, well, the alternative is to go canine. Some hundred stray dogs are welcomed in the enclave, with three dedicated feeding points to ensure they never go hungry. Magazine editor Vinod Mehta, who lived in an apartment
City Monument – President and First Lady’s Tomb, Prithviraj Road Christian Cemetery Monuments by The Delhi Walla - August 26, 20172 The place of grace. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Perhaps the most fitting tribute to a long marriage, this is a memorial to a husband and wife. The tomb’s marble slab describes him as ‘A gentle colossus’ and her as the ‘First Lady of India’. The Delhi Walla is at the Christian cemetery on Prithviraj Road, home to more than 2,000 graves. What makes this tombstone different from any other is the Ashoka seal at the top. India’s national emblem is not out of place here. Ashes of KR Narayanan, the nation’s tenth president, are buried here. His wife is also buried at the same place. He died in 2005. She died three years later. They both were born in 1921. Usha
City Hangout – Terminal 3, Indira Gandhi International Airport Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - August 23, 20171 Foreign holiday with no jet lag. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Isn’t it a hassle to file visa forms for EU nations? Besides asking us for our passport, we have to furnish our return flight ticket, salary slips, bank accounts and a signed letter from our employers. So, The Delhi Walla has devised a way to savour the charms of foreign travel while remaining in our own city. Once every week, I board the Airport Metro Express from New Delhi railway station and get off 20 minutes later at Terminal 3, Indira Gandhi international airport. I go up a series of escalators and enter a hall. This is my dream escape from Delhi — located just before the corridor that connects the
City Walk – Mandi House Traffic Circle, Central Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - August 22, 2017August 22, 20171 Inside the theater district's heart. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] A santoor recital. An art opening sundowner. A new play. Been there, done that. Mandi House, after all, is home to art galleries, concert halls, and the exalted National School of Drama. Today, however, The Delhi Walla is experiencing Mandi House by staying out of its famous haunts. I'm even skipping the shami kebabs of Triveni Tea Terrace. I'm simply walking around the traffic circle. Five roads radiate out of the roundabout. I start clockwise from Barakhama Road. A strange modernist sculpture stands in the center of a dry pool. I can’t make head or tail of it — it’s like an installation fit for a biennale. Nearby, middle-aged men, bonding over a card-game, spot
Netherfield Ball – The Super-Duper Crowded Show at Arundhati Roy’s New York Book Launch, Brooklyn Academy of Music City Parties by The Delhi Walla - August 20, 2017August 20, 20171 The party secrets. [Photos by Paulsta Wong; text by Mayank Austen Soofi] As an Arundhati Roy fan, The Delhi Walla went last year to the faraway South Indian town of Ayemenem, the setting of her first novel, The God of Small Things. You can see the evidence of my visit here. Early this year, I managed to gain entry into the society of fashionable people in Delhi as they discreetly gathered to celebrate Ms Roy’s second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. You can see the evidence here. A few weeks later I was in London to experience Ms Roy novel’s official launch in the crowded Gothic-style Union Chapel (the next day Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn address his last election rally from the same stage). You
City Food – Jain Lunch, Vaishali Food by The Delhi Walla - August 18, 2017August 18, 20170 A home-made meal with the Jalebiwallas. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Jalebi is in the air in Vaishali. The family The Delhi Walla is visiting descends from Nemchand Jain, the man who founded the legendary Old & Famous Jalebiwalla in Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, in the early decades of the last century. Praveen, 60, is his grandson. One of Nemchand Jain’s many descendents, his ties to the establishment are familial, not commercial. In fact, he doesn’t even live in Old Delhi. His home is in suburban Ghaziabad. I'm sharing lunch with Praveen’s wife and children. Praveen explains that the last member of his clan lived in the 80-room family haveli on Gali Khajanchi, in the Walled City, until he died in May 2017. Praveen,
City Hangout – Sperm Park, AIIMS Flyover Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - August 16, 20171 Silence in the chaos. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Who could have imagined the quietest place in Delhi is snuggled in the heart of noise? All around The Delhi Walla is chaos — bikes, autos, cars and buses are speeding on the flyover. But I'm lying sprawled on a grassy slope with the latest Zadie Smith. A plane is flying in the deep blue evening sky; it is looking like a bird. We can see real birds, too. Such are the lazy thrills of lounging in the garden under the AIIMS flyover — the one that is notorious for its ‘giant sperms’. But those metallic installations planted by a steel company in the name of public art fail to interfere with my
Mission Delhi – Meer Chand, Munirika Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - August 14, 20171 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He looks a bit like Derek Walcott. He has the same white hair, the same moustache, the same face cut as the Nobel-Prize winning Caribbean poet who died in March. But this man is holding a shovel instead of a pen. The Delhi Walla meets him one afternoon in South Delhi’s Munirka. He is digging the pavement for underground cables to be installed. Meer Chand’s blue check shirt and grey lungi are covered in brown mud. He is barefoot; his chappals are placed under a tree. His lunch bag is on top of a mound of earth. “I’m 60 or 62... I’m not sure,” he tells me, when