City Series – Monib Ahmad in Delhi, We the Isolationists (295th Corona Diary) Corona Diary by The Delhi Walla - May 15, 20200 Our corona diary. [Text and photo by Monib Ahmad] I close my eyes in self-isolation from corona... and I see the fire that has been consuming me for the last eight hours, lashing wildly like a lunatic. I see beautiful ornate woodwork eaten by an unforgivingly bland depression; the last hopes of a dying dynasty reduced to an ever-rising number. There will be no more kings. An age has passed beneath us while we waited for the right moment: there was no right moment. The lights are dim now as I walk past the abandoned seats to the stage. Will it matter if I do it right this time... even if no one watches? “We the Isolationists” series urges folks from any part
Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Tikuli’s Poem on Coronavirus Lockdown, Hauz Khas City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - May 15, 20200 Poetry in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Tikuli has always been trying to find a home. Even during this lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. In her 50s, her means are artistic that involves painting and writing, and by keenly observing the flow of seasons. (Among other things, she makes sketches of birds she watches from her window.) Spending the lockdown while stranded in her son’s second-floor barsati in south Delhi's Hauz Khas, very close to the Chor Minar monument, Tikuli seems excited as she talks of being able to see “mulberrry tree and the gulmohur through the living-room window, jamun tree through the kitchen window and mango trees, loaded with mangoes, from the terrace.” She is chatting on WhatsApp
Living History – Shambhavi Solanki, Sector 40, Gurgaon Corona Window by The Delhi Walla - May 15, 2020May 15, 20200 Life during Corona. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Coronavirus will become yesterday’s news. That doesn’t change the fact that we are living through a crisis the like of which hasn’t been seen in generations. One day, a century later maybe, when the longest-living among us too would begin to die, newspapers would commemorate the event as the passing away of the last of the people who lived through the world-altering Covid-19 pandemic. In brief, big-time history is happening now. And The Delhi Walla is trying to prepare a part of its first draft by putting a set of questions about ‘daily life these times’ to people from diverse backgrounds. Today, it’s Shambhavi Solanki. In her 30s, she works in the Human Resources of a