City News – Mona Ahmed, Delhi’s Most Iconic Transgender, is No More, Mehnediya Qabristan Graveyard General by The Delhi Walla - September 10, 2017September 10, 20171 Passing of a legend. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Mona Ahmed, India's most iconic transgender person, died on the night of 9 September 2017. She would have turned 82 in November. Ms Ahmed was the principal subject of artist Dayanita Singh's celebrated book Myself Mona Ahmed (2001). The Delhi Walla is at Ms Ahmed's grave a few hours after her burial, which was held at 2 am in Mehnediya Qabristan, a graveyard behind Maulana Azad Medical College in Central Delhi. Ms Ahmed lived in this graveyard itself. Ms Ahmed's fresh grave looks like a simple mound of damp earth. It is protected from the elements by a tin shed. A candle is burning. The shed has a sofa and an orange mattress. This
Atget’s Corner – 1051-1055, Delhi Photos Delhi Pics by The Delhi Walla - September 7, 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 1051 to 1055. 1051. To Jobs That Exploit
City Monument – Hanuman-Ji’s Statue, Jhandewalan Park Monuments by The Delhi Walla - September 5, 2017September 5, 20174 Inside the icon. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It’s so very tempting to regard that gleaming metro train zipping past the Lord Hanuman statue as a near collision of ancient beliefs with the uneasy ethos of the modern. This landmark in central Delhi's Jhandewalan Park has become so iconic that even a big newspaper office (Hindustan Times) flaunts its poster. Of course, the 108-foot statue in central Delhi's Jhandewalan Park isn’t precisely ancient, finally completed in 1997. Did you know you can enter the famous landmark? I did it just the other day With the entrance shaped like a woman’s jaw, I walked over her “tongue” and found myself inside a temple. Here, tehre was anothers maller idol of Hanuman. In the
Mission Delhi – Salma Sultan, Jangpura Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - September 3, 20175 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Salma Sultan hasn’t changed at all, down to the famous red rose tucked gloriously in her bun. The famous Doordarshan newsreader stopped reading TV news back in 1997. These days, she plays a Yamaha synthesizer. The Delhi Walla is in her drawing room in central Delhi’s Jangpura. Her son, an income tax officer, lives elsewhere in the city, and her daughter is a choreographer in New York. Wearing a blue khadi silk sari paired with a black blouse, Ms Sultan is playing the tune of the ghazal ‘Hotho se choo lo tum, mera geet amar kar do’ from the film Prem Geet. Her fingers are moving across the keys like
City Nature – Monsoon Sky, Across Delhi Nature by The Delhi Walla - September 1, 2017September 1, 20173 That touch of impressionism. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The rainy day draws to a close here in west Delhi's Janakpuri when suddenly something incredible happens. Suddenly the western sky bleaches, a strange shade of reddish-orange that startles and tantalizes. So sudden is this luminous display that you might regard it as a sign from some Higher Power. Perhaps, just perhaps, Heaven might look something like this? As it happens, The Delhi Walla frequently encounters these bleached skies during the months of monsoon. It is as though even the street garbage glowed. But of course nothing at all is permanent on earth or even in heaven. In a few months, when winter settles upon the capital, our world will be coated with