City Food – Vanshas Candy Cart, Sadar Bazaar, Gurgaon Food by The Delhi Walla - July 24, 2019July 24, 20190 Childhood rekindled. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some experiences belong to only premillennial childhoods. Like being able to spend, and enjoy, an entire day without the smartphone. Or, being addicted to unbranded candies, mouth fresheners and spicy churans sold by street hawkers. Vanshas Sweets, Supari and Churan is a roadside shack in Gurgaon’s Sadar Bazaar, in the Greater Delhi Region, and is very special. It is crammed with all those aforementioned candies, mouth fresheners and churans that made up the early years of many of us who grew up when the Spice Girls were the Lady Gaga of the time. The cart’s best-sellers are undoubtedly the candies—the orange santre ki goli and the black sweet-sour machli ki goli. The latter’s name
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Kashiana Singh, Chicago Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - July 24, 2019July 24, 20191 The 239th death. [Text and photo sent by Kashiana Singh] In leaving as in coming, Kashiana Singh left behind many monochromatic moments. She wrote down a few wishes, on checkered pages (she loved checkered notebooks)in pencilled cursive hand Carpe Diem If I could plant myself on my dada’s knee again I would listen, rapt as he fed me almonds, but I would feel his fingers, where the knuckles knotted stories If I could borrow my nani’s lace dupatta again I would remember to wear it like a pilgrimage I would celebrate her indiscernible life, hued into its layers If I could hold my brother close to my chest I would hold gently, enfolding my arms around his neck I would not let go, embracing ferociously till my breath became
Mission Delhi – Samina, Central Delhi Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - July 24, 20190 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] As a single mother Samina supports herself and her baby, Sufiyan, by begging. And with some success. “I’m earning enough to at least have rotis twice daily,” reports the 20-year-old. She and her baby boy are living in a Lodhi-era ruin in central Delhi--after kicking out her husband who refused to work. Samina is no stranger to hardship. She grew up in Delhi without much motherly love. “I have no clue to her whereabouts, not even her mobile number… I think she is somewhere in Bihar,” she says. Her father died in an accident when she was small. Four years ago she met Shahid who was working as a cleaner