City Moment – Offering a Rose to Villy Sorabji, Parsi Cemetery
Remembering a loved one. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The graves are arranged neatly about a red brick structure here in the small Parsi Cemetery in Central Delhi. No other visitors at the moment. Gardner Manoj Mishra is…
City Hangout – Poetry Reading Benches, Mirza Ghalib’s Tomb
Place for poems. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Those good souls who love reading poems will sit down with a poetry anthology just about anywhere. Even while standing in a jam-packed Metro train. But where can one find…
City Region – Slum and ‘Society’, Sector 15, Gurgaon
Our disparate lives. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The neighbours are loitering outside their homes, making small talk about the cold weather. Soon enough, the conversation veers towards a “multi-storey society”, or as they would like to call…
City Moment – Kitchen Couple, Mathura Road
Family values. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] On this chilly night Mathura Road has emptied of traffic. But a flame flickers on this Central Delhi pavement—home sweet home for a family of five living under an orange tarpaulin….
City Walk, Barakhamba, Central Delhi
The 5 am stroll. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This early morning stroll is as illusory as a morning dream. At 5am the walk along central Delhi’s Barakhamba Road seems unreal. Stretching from Pushkin’s statue in Mandi House…
Home Sweet Home – Study Room, Rose Garden, Gurgaon
Study spaces. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Children go to public parks to play. But these three boys are picnicking over school books. There are dreams to chase after all and “no time to waste,” cautions the poker-faced…
City Hangout – Shatabdi Watching, New Delhi Railway Station
The thrill of travel. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] That powerful sense of “going somewhere” is probably more palpable in a railway station than at an airport terminal. So many of us harassed Delhiites dream of escaping this…
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Conservation Architect Ratish Nanda, Near Humayun’s Tomb
The parlour confession. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Proust Questionnaire represents a confessional game that owes its structure to answers given by celebrated French writer Marcel Proust in two parties that he attended at ages 13 and…
Mission Delhi – Bhawani, Sector 15, Gurgaon
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] For years Bhawani’s life stayed the same. Earning a living as a “maid” in a score of middle-class households in Gurgaon in the Greater Delhi…
City Monument – Mirza Ghalib’s Statue, Jamia Millia Islamia University
Poet’s spot. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Consider this. Although he’s one of the world’s great poets, spending most of his life in Delhi, there’s nary a statue of him in the Capital. How is it that Mirza…
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