Netherfield Ball – ‘Thought Leader’ Gurcharan Das Surprises True Proustains by Posing as a Proustian in Aaanchal Malhotra’s Book Launch , India International Centre City Parties by The Delhi Walla - August 11, 2017August 12, 20172 The party secrets. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Socialite Shweta Bachchan-Nanda, who appeared on the cover of the latest Vogue, came in white. Alas, nobody noticed her entry though she looked tolerable (see the second-last photo below). One evening The Delhi Walla attended the launch of Aanchal Malhotra's book Remnants of a Separation in India International Center. There is much to gossip about but I shall remain mum. Ms Malhotra belongs to the family that owns the landmark Bahrisons Booksellers, the bookstore in Khan Market that serves me free chai in white plastic cup. No point in risking that hard-earned privilege. Even so, it is safe to reveal the famous faces seen in the gathering. Just scroll down this parchment. But wait! Ms
Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Neha Kumar, Vasant Kunj City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - August 10, 20171 Poetry in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi vs Bombay? You must be joking. There’s absolutely no competition between these two cities. Delhi is by far... oh well, The Delhi Walla can’t lose out on his Bombay readers, after all. Instead, I shall simply bark and boast by riding on the coattails of Neha Kumar, the poet behind ‘Delhi’s reply to Bombay’—yes, that’s a poem and one hell of a Delhi-Bombay poem. We met Ms Kumar at her beautiful home in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj where she lives with her cats Oh Dear and Oh My. (Oh Dear, the fatter of the two cats, has her own rocking chair, while Oh My is a hopeless wanderer whom we saw hiding under the
Atget’s Corner – 1046-1050, Delhi Photos Delhi Pics by The Delhi Walla - August 9, 20170 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 1046 to 1050. 1046. His Chai Comes Before
Home Sweet Home – Writer Taslima Nasrin’s Study, Somewhere in Delhi Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - August 7, 2017August 7, 20176 A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] “Stop bitching. Start a revolution.” “Religion stops a thinking mind.” “Proud to be a feminist.” “Keep your laws off my body.” These stickers grace the room where she is writing short stories these days. One afternoon The Delhi Walla meets Taslima Nasrin in her study. The Bangladesh-born writer has been living in exile in Delhi for over five years. I will not disclose her neighbourhood for security reasons, but I can gladly tell you that it overlooks a lovely garden, and that her beautiful balcony is hidden behind with half a dozen wildish trees. The study, however, appears to have nothing to link it to Delhi. We could as well be in Dhaka, Paris, Stockholm, Berlin, Munich,
City Life – The 40 Kashmiris of Old Delhi, Turkman Gate Bazaar General by The Delhi Walla - August 5, 2017August 5, 20170 Home away from home. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] They are like migratory birds who make permanent, if makeshift, nests in a faraway land. A group of 40 Kashmiri men live in a corner at Old Delhi’s Turkman Gate Bazaar. They are from Dolegam, a village near Banihal, and have been here for three decades. They work as daily-wage labourers, hauling load on their reris (wooden trolleys). Their customers could be anyone — from wholesale dealers to shopkeepers or homeowners wanting to move a sofa from the first floor of their apartment to the fourth. The Delhi Walla meets them late one night. Some are sleeping on the pavement. The rest are awake, sitting on the trolleys, watching the crowded street. Kashmir has made
Letter from Another Delhi — A Walk in Daulatabad, the Tughlaqs’ Other Capital Monuments by The Delhi Walla - August 1, 2017August 1, 20172 A journey into another Delhi. [Text and photos by Adrien Thomson] “It was almost a desert,” wrote the great voyager Ibn Battuta in his memoirs, referring to Delhi in 1333. “The greatest city in the world had the fewest inhabitants.” A few years before, in 1327, Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq had decided to destroy the capital and move it to Daulatabad, in today's Maharashtra. Delhi's entire population was ordered to pack up and depart for what was to be their new home, seven hundred miles to the south. It was a long journey. Exhaustion, heat, thirst – thousands died on the way. The ones who did reach settled as best they could. Then, merely two years later, with terrible irony, Daulatabad’s lack of