Mission Delhi – Lanoo, Lajpat Nagar Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - April 1, 20200 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] She’s the kind of busy restless soul who hardly spends any waking hours at home. So this is a particularly trying time for her. The young engineering student is confined to her flat in south Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar--shared with her parents. “I haven’t been out for 21 days,” reports Lanoo, 20, talking with The Delhi Walla on WhatsApp. The young woman talks like a torrent of mountain stream, her words rolling out one after another in a never-ending flow. Lanoo says she’s spent her entire life in Lajpat Nagar, and now realizes how it’s irrevocably linked to her persona. Lajpat Nagar, of course, is one of the capital’s most bustling
City Series – Shriya Prasad in Hyderabad, We the Isolationists (130th Corona Diary) Corona Diary by The Delhi Walla - April 1, 20200 Our corona diary. [Text and photo by Shriya Prasad] I close my eyes in self-isolation from corona... and I see myself out in the meadows of yellow and blue telling me that there is another time like today, the now, singing to me in crescents of mellow from the below. I wake up to chop my almonds in symmetrical slices to put over my soaked oatmeal, to click a picture for my Instagram and go on about life as if nothing has happened, as if there is no migrant worker walking hundred of kilometres, striving to be alive. Alas, no one knows the poignance of perfectly cut almonds. “We the Isolationists” series urges folks from any part of the world to share
City Series – Aditi Thorat in London, We the Isolationists (129th Corona Diary) Corona Diary by The Delhi Walla - April 1, 20200 Our corona diary. [Text and photo by Aditi Thorat] I close my eyes in self-isolation from corona... and I see the sea. I am a bird, gliding above the blue blue Mediterranean and the white limestone mountains of southern Turkey. I am expecting to feel anxious, exhilarated, but the experience is strangely meditative. And now staring at a blank wall, I think of the human urge to fly. That sense of freedom and expansiveness that comes only with perspective. “We the Isolationists” series urges folks from any part of the world to share a brief diary starting with “I close my eyes in my self-isolation from Corona... and I see...” Not more than 100 words. With a horizontal-sized selfie, along with your city
City Series – Disha Kukreja in Indore, We the Isolationists (128th Corona Diary) Corona Diary by The Delhi Walla - April 1, 2020April 1, 20200 Our corona diary. [Text and photo by Disha Kukreja] I close my eyes in self-isolation from corona... and I see my thoughts climbing over each other, without jumping to a conclusion. "Is this really happening? Is this real? Are we all stuck in a sci-fi movie?" Is an interrogation I do it with myself not knowing anything but just the news, the news of the conditions getting worse day by day. But then I cannot believe what I see, I see this ray of hope through the end of this dark tunnel. I see all those heroes who are assiduously working to let this sci-fi end with a "happy ending”. That’s when my gut tells me that everything's going to be alright and
City Series – Prateek Gulati in Delhi, We the Isolationists (127th Corona Diary) Corona Diary by The Delhi Walla - April 1, 2020April 4, 20200 Our corona diary. [Text and photo by Prateek Gulati] I close my eyes in self-isolation from corona... and I see Gulmohar 2, my room in my college campus that I could never say goodbye to properly because I left in a jiff. I close my eyes and dream of waking up to the overtly sweet coffee of chotta canteen. As I sit here today back home, with my family safe, I wish for them to attend my convocation that probably now won't take place. I close my eyes and I think about my frivolous loss of memories and quickly get aware of my privilege. Yet I grief. “We the Isolationists” series urges folks from any part of the world to share a
City Series – Roopamvir Singh in Jammu, We the Isolationists (126th Corona Diary) Corona Diary by The Delhi Walla - April 1, 20200 Our corona diary. [Text and photo by Roopamvir Singh] I close my eyes in self-isolation from corona... and I see myself enclosed in emptiness. I grope the ground restlessly around me as I am plunged into this darkness painting my cheerful world. In suffocating confusions, I hear unclear whispers trembling in terrible winds of time, there are symphonies of learned helplessness and melodies of symbolic hopes, there is a mistrustful appearance of normalcy concealing the flames of unfettered faith in wounded hearts where the meanings of life have been reconstructed by unfailing struggles and unwavering refusals to give in to uncertainties. These hearts are breathing in oceans of unheard tales and abandoned endurances. These tales are weaved in their veins as silence
City Series – Zoya Fatima in Bhagalpur, Bihar, We the Isolationists (125th Corona Diary) Corona Diary by The Delhi Walla - April 1, 20200 Our corona diary. [Text and photo by Zoya Fatima] I close my eyes in self-isolation from corona... and I see myself - alive, alone. I'm running towards, or perhaps away from something. Maybe it's my life. I'm trying to escape this bitter reality that I've been forced to witness. I'm running towards a simpler lifestyle, or a normal one, to be precise. A lifestyle where a day off school used to be a pleasure, where I didn't live in the constant fear of a virus infecting my loved ones living miles away from me, where anxiety attacks where not a day to day thing, where I used to cancel plans by choice, where the streets used to be full of so many
City Series – Sonam Chashutsang in New York City, We the Isolationists (124th Corona Diary) Corona Diary by The Delhi Walla - April 1, 20200 Our corona diary. [Text and photo by Sonam Chashutsang] I close my eyes in self-isolation from corona... and I see myself lying on the bed Thinking of my mother Who must have felt the same loneliness- The one we now call isolation I lay there staring at the ceiling I am with my mother in her deathbed-alongside her Counting our breaths in and out I close my eyes and hear birds chirp In a language-only, I could understand Telling me to open my lungs to breathe and out Knowing that this, too, shall pass “We the Isolationists” series urges folks from any part of the world to share a brief diary starting with “I close my eyes in my self-isolation from Corona... and I see...” Not more than 100 words.
City Series – Micah Petersen in Fort Drum, USA, We the Isolationists (123rd Corona Diary) Corona Diary by The Delhi Walla - April 1, 2020April 1, 20200 Our corona diary. [Text and photo by Micah Petersen] I close my eyes in self-isolation from corona... and I see after 19 years, even the war stopped. The virus doing what 19 years of death, and bombs, and America's leaders couldn't: bring the war in Afghanstan to a halt. Instead of lacing up my boots to lead in combat, I'm in my living room, reliving an independent life eerily similar to my homeschool childhood. The world screaming for socialization as I recall the value of solitude. My generation defined by the destruction of trade towers, this generation, the Coronials, defined by the invasion of something much less discriminatory in its destruction. Writer's note: My words do not reflect thoughts or opinions of the
Julia Child in Delhi – Advocate Farah Naaz Makes Her Friend Charu’s Upma, Sector 52, Gurgaon Julia Child's Delhi by The Delhi Walla - April 1, 2020April 1, 20200 The great chef’s life in Delhi. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Forced into self-isolation, she closes her eyes and sees herself turning into “a tiny speck of dust.” And now, she, this dust particle, floats into the air, flies across the spaces and oceans, to her friend Charu’s home. Charu has been forced into self-isolation too. Coronavirus is everywhere. This dust particle is Farah Naaz, as she imagined herself. She is an advocate and lives in Gurgaon in the Greater Delhi Region. Charu is a friend of her youth, who lives in distant California. “We spent six years of our college life together, in AMU (Aligarh Muslim University),” recalls Ms Naaz, sitting in the drawing room of her ground floor flat in Sector