Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Jasbir Chatterjee, Vikaspuri City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - November 12, 20173 Poetry in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Do our office colleagues really know us? Take Jasbir Chatterjee. A Quality Manager in a luxury car dealership in Gurgaon, she knows everything about automobiles (don’t get her started on mileage and engines!). But nobody in her office knows she also writes poems and that she has been at it since childhood. The Delhi Walla has met Ms Chatterjee both at her office and home. This evening I'm at the poet's Vikas Puri flat. Her husband is at the dining table, her daughter is on the opposite sofa, and she is lovingly holding her mobile phone. “These days I write all my poems on my phone during the daily commute
Photo Essay – The Apocalyptic Scenes in the World’s Most Polluted City, Around Delhi Photo Essays by The Delhi Walla - November 9, 2017November 9, 20178 The end of the world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] For at least two days in November, Delhi was cloaked in smog. During the day, you couldn’t see the sun. At night, the stars and the moon went missing. It became completely normal to see people going around their life wearing anti-pollution masks. The Delhi Walla went around the town to witness the terrifying scenes. The world as we know it... now 1. Yay! Honey, We Finally Screwed the Sunrise! 1a. City Vanished 2. The Tainted Tapestry of Picasso’s Guernica, or Just a Slow-Moving Suicide March in the World’s Foulest City 3. On the Death of Mankind... in the World’s Most Polluted City With No Sun No Moon 4. I’m Going... Never Look for Me 5. Faces of the
Delhi Metro – Dwarka Sector 21, Blue Line Delhi Metro by The Delhi Walla - November 7, 2017November 8, 20172 A last station's romance. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] They dot our landscape, more than 150 of them. And now The Delhi Walla is friends with arguably the most gorgeous of all those Metro stations in our sprawling city. Just take the 50km Blue Line out to the very last stop – Dwarka Sector 21 — and you’re in for an unexpected treat. This gleaming station isn’t like any other. All glass and concrete, it’s lavishly landscaped with a long row of begonia trees lining the boundary wall — all sprouting golden yellow flowers — the day I go there. Bored rickshaw drivers are on to a good thing. They park beneath the greenery, waiting for customers while chatting on mobile phones. Come evening,
Home Sweet Home – Rickshaw Puller Vishwajeet Mondal’s Bedroom, Near Jangpura Metro Station Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - November 7, 20170 A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Traffic has slowed to trickle near Jangpura Metro station where two tired rickshaw pullers are calling it a night. Dressed down to their lungis, Bhajan Lal and Vishwajeet Mondal carefully unfold a pink mosquito net, rig it up, and then tie the loose ends to their rickshaws. After spreading a sheet across the pavement they smilingly suggest The Delhi Walla joins them. “Don’t worry about rain,” advises Mr. Mondal. “We’re protected by the elevated rail roof...” As I slowly crawl in, Mr Mondal relates a recent disaster in his life. A native of Maldah in West Bengal, the wheat harvest at the family farm was ruined in monsoon flooding. “Hamara saara dhaan doob gaya.” But now
City Walk – Historian William Dalrymple’s Guided Tour, Mehrauli Ruins Walks by The Delhi Walla - November 6, 2017November 6, 20176 Author walk. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] More than 50 experts from different fields have been pooled in for the ongoing Delhi Walk Festival. Only three of them are foreigners. While no walk can have more than 30 participants, the only exception is for this man’s walk—“His group limit is 40 because he is he,” explained an organizer. The 'he' was Delhi's longtime dweller William Dalrymple. The famous author of City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi conducted a long dusty walk one Sunday morning yesterday through Mehrauli’s deliciously dense jumble of forgotten graves, gateways, and domes in south Delhi. With the humble hawai chappals as his walking gear, the historian gossiped about obscure late Mughal emperors as casually as we do
City Life – Meraj’s Future Telling Machine, Daryaganj Life by The Delhi Walla - November 4, 20171 Automated soothsayer. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] We all have our own way of making a living, but Mr Meraj is definitely a trailblazer. He goes around the city with a machine that would be hard to duplicate. Resembling a giant toaster, it “predicts your future” electronically. Next to the machine is a promotional sign that proclaims in Hindi and Urdu: “Hear your future with the electronic machine. Question, Rs 5. Answer, Rs 5.” “Most of my clients are pedestrians,” explains Mr Meraj, when we caught up with him in Daryagani. On a good day he might pull in Rs 150. We go on chatting till a customer turns up. Mr Meraj inserts a stethoscope-like device into the guy’s ears. Bulbs blink! Pointers oscillate! The young man listens
City Landmark – Tolstoy’s Statue, Near Janpath Market Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - November 2, 20170 From Russia with Love. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] His arms crossed, Leo Tolstoy gazes towards Janpath’s Tibetan market. But since he is hidden behind trees, it is impossible to see him from... well, Tolstoy Marg. The plinth contains nothing more than Tolstoy’s name carved in Hindi and Russian, along with the year of installation — 1989. To understand the logic of having Tolstoy’s statue in the city of Ghalib and Daagh, The Delhi Walla called up a Tolstoy reader and an esteemed Russian language scholar who has traced the evolution of that language in contemporary India. “Russian language was taught in Delhi even before Independence but the phonological education in Russian started in 1965 with the setting up of the Centre
City Style – Chinna Dua’s Sari Closets, Raj Narayan Road Style by The Delhi Walla - November 1, 20172 Style in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Two gorgeous saris are hanging down from her staircase. The blue chiffon bought 20 years ago in Lahore, Pakistan, is for tonight’s dinner — very apt indeed, as it is in the home of a Pakistani friend. The beige kora silk is for work tomorrow. Padmavati Dua — her friends call her Chinna — wears a sari every day and, hours before dressing up, she irons and hangs it on the handrail to avoid any creases. Her patients may know Dr Dua as a radiologist, but to most of us she is the woman who inundates her Facebook account with sari selfies. And that’s generous of her — after all, her saris are