City Moment – Offering a Rose to Villy Sorabji, Parsi Cemetery Moments by The Delhi Walla - January 23, 2020January 23, 20201 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 working on a flower bed. His shy colleague, Kuldeep, is scrapping off the weedy grass growing beside a very small grave (perhaps it belongs to a child). The Delhi Walla is looking for Villy Sorabji’s tombstone. Earlier in the day her son, a reader of my work, had messaged an unusual request on Instagram from his home in California. He wondered if I could place his mother’s favorite flower at her grave—a rose. It’s the tenth year of her death, he confided, informing
City Hangout – Poetry Reading Benches, Mirza Ghalib’s Tomb Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - January 22, 20200 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 the most idyllic spot in Delhi for reading verses? A library, perhaps? A simple park bench? Well, sure. Those are the logical spots, quite apart from your very own home. But without question, the ideal milieu has to be the tomb of poet Mirza Ghalib. Located in congested Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti in central Delhi, the tomb is found at one end of a vast walled-in courtyard. The best thing here is the seating arrangement. Once here, you ought to settle down on any of the five
City Region – Slum and ‘Society’, Sector 15, Gurgaon Regions by The Delhi Walla - January 22, 20200 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 it “society”, coming up behind their houses. It’s not really very high, but looms large because the rest of the houses seem so small here in Gurgaon’s Sector 15 in the Greater Delhi Region. These are single-room dwellings, many of them with tarpaulin sheets as their walls. “Everyone here is either a labourer or a servant,” says Savita Rajat who works as a cleaner in “kothis”. Her husband is an auto-rickshaw driver. The other gentleman, Muhammed Irfan, is a knife seller. He lives in
City Moment – Kitchen Couple, Mathura Road Moments by The Delhi Walla - January 21, 2020January 21, 20200 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. There’s a sixth member, too—a brown dog. At this very moment husband Feroze is rolling out rotis, while his wife Sakina is cooking them, one-by-one, on a sooty girdle—as their three hungry children expectantly loiter by. Feroze, 30, is well aware that the men of the house are not always expected to work in the kitchens of Indian households. “I’m a beldar (daily wage labourer), while Sakina is a kaam-wali (house maid)… we both earn money, so we both work equally at home… we
City Walk, Barakhamba, Central Delhi General by The Delhi Walla - January 20, 20200 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 to Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s bust at the Barakhamba traffic light, the dense foliage of surrounding trees claims the Russian writer as their own. From certain angles it looks as though Pushkin’s tall statue is nothing more than the remains of an old city turned to ruins—lost to the jungle. Now, cross the road to the residence of the Nepalese ambassador, which amounts to one of the most distinctive mansions in this neck of the city. It looks even more regal than the famous Narayanhiti Palace
Home Sweet Home – Study Room, Rose Garden, Gurgaon Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - January 19, 20201 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 Aman, who aspires to be an engineer. He is sitting on the grassy slope of Gurgaon’s Rose Garden in Sector 15 in the Greater Delhi Region with his two cousins—Kaushal who wants to be in the army, and Lovekush who harbours an ambition to be a “commando.” Students of a nearby government-run primary school, these studious boys live in the park with their gardener parents in makeshift dwellings. Their family elders don’t mind their “khel-kood as long as our study time outlasts our play
City Hangout – Shatabdi Watching, New Delhi Railway Station Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - January 18, 20200 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 tough city by train if only for the weekend, to nearby towns like Jhansi or Amritsar. Failing that, one can also visit a busy train station without going anywhere. To vicariously enjoy the sense of adventure in the comings and goings of exciting expresses. At around 6 am every morning India’s iconic superfast trains, the Shatabdis, depart from New Delhi railway station, running at average speeds of 100 km. In all, some 50 Shatabdis connect passengers throughout India. Every morning in Delhi, about a dozen
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Conservation Architect Ratish Nanda, Near Humayun’s Tomb General by The Delhi Walla - January 17, 20200 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 20 in the late 19th century. The Delhi Walla have brought these Parisian parlour confessions into the Indian capital to explore people’s lives, thoughts, values and experiences. The series interview folks from diverse backgrounds. So today, say hello to conservation architect Ratish Nanda. As CEO, Aga Khan Trust for Culture, India, he works in a beautifully landscaped office just a few steps away from Humayun’s Tomb. Your favourite virtue or the key aspect of your personality I strive to fulfil my responsibilities Your favourite qualities in a
Mission Delhi – Bhawani, Sector 15, Gurgaon Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - January 15, 2020January 15, 20200 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 Region, she lives with her husband who sells fish in the market. They have five children. In her late 40s, Bhawani is obliged to work equally hard in her own home—she cooks the meals, washes the dishes and does the laundry. Six months ago the family got an addition—a washing machine. It wasn’t new. “I bought it from a kabadi walla for 3,000 rupees,” says husband Ram Kumar. Bhawani faced no difficulty in operating the machine “because I’ve been encountering them daily in
City Monument – Mirza Ghalib’s Statue, Jamia Millia Islamia University Monuments by The Delhi Walla - January 15, 2020January 15, 20200 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 Ghalib got so neglected? After all, his acclaimed letters and poetry help us understand the social and literary worlds of 19th century India. Well, OK. There is one exception to the apparent neglect. Here on the lawns of Gulistan-i-Ghalib garden in south Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University, a thin brown dog is quietly snoozing under a statue of Ghalib himself, perched on a plinth. Dressed in a long flowing robe, the poet looks more like a lawyer than the author of famed verses—that are essential in Urdu