Netherfield Ball – The Story Behind Meru Gokhale’s No-Show at Chiki Sarkar’s Launch of Perumal Murugan’s Book, India Islamic Center City Parties by The Delhi Walla - December 8, 2017December 8, 20170 The party secrets. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It's a cold smoggy evening at the bleak India Islamic Center and we are growing attached to an intellectual's grey braid. The Delhi Walla is at the launch of Perumal Murugan’s novel The Goat Thief. The author is a modest man; so modest that he slips inside the waiting hall and nobody notices him. Only after he sits down on a corner sofa that a handful of attendees become aware of his presence and approach him for book signing. Meanwhile, Chiki Sarkar, Mr Murugan’s publisher at Juggernaut Books, has not arrived yet. They say Ms Sarkar snatched our novelist-of-the-evening from Penguin Random House. Wait, we sniff gossip here(!) Can this be the reason behind
Home Sweet Home – Chacha Jan’s Unauthorized Home, Vasundhara Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - December 8, 20170 Inside the walls. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One day his home was there, as always. Today, it’s not there. That unauthorized makeshift dwelling was the only constant in this ever-changing middle-class neighborhood in suburban Vasundhara. Known simply as Chacha Jan, or Dear Uncle, the elderly man had arrived in Vasundhara in 2000. Situated beyond the eastern edges of Delhi, the area was then uninhabited. His shack was the only structure here. Today, we have dozens of apartment blocks here, each with its barricaded gate. And in this portion of precious real estate, Chacha Jan’s improvised abode had been allowed to survive for so long. The Delhi Walla once documented his house, little knowing that it would soon be history. A native of western