Mission Delhi - Samairaa Arora, Gurgaon

Mission Delhi – Samairaa Arora, Gurgaon

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. She no longer has to get up early — at 7 am. She…

City Season - Bougainvillaea Bloom, Lodhi Garden

City Season – Bougainvillaea Bloom, Lodhi Garden

Season’s second gift. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] What a sight. So full of flowers. Thousands and thousands of them. These two bougainvillaea trees in central Delhi’s Lodhi Garden make one of the city’s most stunning spectacles, though…

Mission Delhi - Baldev, Khan Market

Mission Delhi – Baldev, Khan Market

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Cool people never say they are cool. They let others do the talk. This is precisely the case of Baldev. Enjoying a most enviable reputation…

Mission Delhi - Savita, Gurgaon

Mission Delhi – Savita, Gurgaon

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The coronavirus pandemic has forced many of us to self-exile within our house. This makes one finally appreciate what one always took for granted—ambling along…

Mission Delhi - Dherapad, Central Delhi

Mission Delhi – Dherapad, Central Delhi

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is standing motionless. His large eyes are gazing straight ahead, unblinking, as if penetrating into infinity. The middle-aged man in shirt and pajamas is…

City Food - Mango Nuggets & Recipes

City Food – Mango Nuggets & Recipes

Season’s taste. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is the time of the year when a Mirza Ghalib devotee could offer at his tomb in Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti a tribute that would have made the poet very happy….

City Library - Shalini Bahadur's Books, Gurgaon

City Library – Shalini Bahadur’s Books, Gurgaon

Life with books. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] She woke up very early in her Gurgaon condo the morning after prime minister’s first speech on janta curfew, the one that preempted the much-longer coronavirus-ridden lockdown. By 6.15 am,…

Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Aradhana Seth, Noida

Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Aradhana Seth, Noida

The parlour confession. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] How to describe her? Painter? Production designer? Photographer? Producer or film maker? Oh well, Aradhana Seth is an artist. And like most members of this restless specie, she is able…

Mission Delhi - Rajinder, Central Delhi

Mission Delhi – Rajinder, Central Delhi

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is hundreds of miles away from home, and tends to keep his troubles to himself instead of adding anxieties to his family. For instance,…

City Series – Megha Gandotra in Jammu, We the Isolationists (387th Corona Diary)

City Series – Megha Gandotra in Jammu, We the Isolationists (387th Corona Diary)

Our corona diary. [Text and photo by Megha Gandotra] I close my eyes in self-isolation from corona… and I see myself kneeling at the altar of hoarded books trying to read each one of them, tenderly unfolding their moth-eaten pages,…