City Life – Downton Abbey Civilisation, Sunder Nursery Life by The Delhi Walla - November 30, 2020November 30, 20200 The world of the super-rich. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Seen Downton Abbey, the series on an aristocratic family and their servants, in 19th century England? Who would have imagined that it would take a historical necropolis to put up its Delhi adaptation — but in the form of a free reality show. Renovated into a complex of gardens, Sunder Nursery has emerged as a theatre to witness the domestic manners of Delhi’s super-rich—only they can afford full-time maids and nannies to accompany them in their walks and picnics. Unlike in other parks, here they truly display their at-home manners in full public view, to the advantage of those of us who can never crash into their houses. This reportage is drawn
City Legend – Meraj Ahmed Nizami, Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah Culture by The Delhi Walla - November 28, 2020November 29, 20200 Delhi's greatest qawwal. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This winter marks the fifth death anniversary of Meraj Ahmed Nizami, the great qawwal of the sufi shrine of Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. The news of Meraj’s passing had gone unrecorded. Now, in this season of losses, one may as well commemorate the loss of one of the most accomplished, if little-known, figures of contemporary Delhi. As the elderly patriarch of Nizami Khusro Bandhu family, Meraj was among a very few classical qawwals left in India. He rendered Persian sufi verses most fluently in the old tarz, or melodies. This frail erudite supremely elegant man lived most modestly, in a one-room house near the aforementioned 14th century shrine. Meraj’s grandfather’s grandfather was the “shahi gawayya
Debris of Life & Mind – Actor & Model Aram Khan’s Dream, Bombay City Dreams by The Delhi Walla - November 28, 2020November 28, 20200 Sharing a dream. [Text by Aram Khan, photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] I saw in my dream struggling for my dream. I worked hard the whole day and yet had a shortage of food. I was tired but relentlessly toiling. Sometimes I was very happy and at times I acted sad. There were some bright flashes of lights and some dark shadows. But the fight seemed real for the hunger. I wasn’t sure in my dreams if it was a real story or all made up. But sure there was a constant endeavour for enthusiasm. Then a lady approached me. I was nervous looking at her. She smiled looking at me. I felt she had seen my struggle and saw potential in me.
City Landmark – Blue Wall, Sheikh Kaleemullah Jehanabadi’s Sufi Shrine Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - November 28, 20200 Beautiful blues. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] There is something gracefully fragile about the blue colour — especially in Delhi, where blue skies are more of a myth. In our city, every bit of blue, whatever its shade, depth and scale, can be seen as a mute testament to what we don’t have. See this wall. It displays such an exquisite depiction of blue that it probably wouldn’t be out of place in a critically acclaimed museum. The color here is rendered in many fine gradations of decreasing brightness, as if a painter had, after playing on her palette with several shades of blue, harmoniously arranged them on a canvas of bricks. For that matter, red bricks also show up,
City Moment – Winter Sunset, Jama Masjid, Gurgaon Moments by The Delhi Walla - November 26, 20200 The perfect Delhi moment. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is winter and the sun is at long last our friend. But some things don’t change: the most poignant time of the season is still the twilight hour, when our sky’s brightest star starts staging a retreat. The so-called Millennium City of Gurgaon in the Greater Delhi Region is rich in sunset points. The most beautiful sites from where to view the perishing sun are undoubtedly enjoyed by the posh Golf Course Road dwellers, living in the higher floors of the multi-storey residential towers. Another set of good places is on the flyovers of National Highway 8 — but this is a pleasure accessible only to those driving towards Delhi. The
Debris of Life & Mind – Copywriter’s Lidiya Prasad’s Dream, Cochin City Dreams by The Delhi Walla - November 26, 2020November 26, 20200 Sharing a dream. [Text by Lidiya Prasad, photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] There is a world way above, in a perpetually purple sky. It looks surprisingly like a museum, or our parliament, only upside down. As it hangs in a parallel world, people move about down below, reading books, chasing rickshaws, bargaining at bazaars, praying at mandirs, falling in and out of love. I long to travel to the world above and set out on a mission to build a sledge that can only be operated by me. The dream skips to the part where a wooden sledge lies in my garden, ready to take me with it. I take a book along and begin my journey--the dream abruptly ends there and
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Manami Chakravorty, Calcutta Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - November 26, 20200 The 256th death. [By Manami Chakravorty] Manami Chakravorty loved window seats and enjoyed travelling in metro and local trains, silently observing different people with different lives, coexisting together. She weaved stories around strangers. She kept wondering about everything and hence was usually lost. For most of her life, Ms Chakravorty confused happiness with peace. She thought every non-living thing was an individual. For her, the yellow taxis were men in their mid-thirties, tired of their average lives; and cream biscuits were some happy kids, unaware of the cruelty of this world. She strongly believed in the power of kindness and in the healing power of books and ghazals. She had this conclusion--life is like a strict teacher, who punishes you brutally to make you
City Hangout – Modern Tea Stall, Haveli Azam Khan Street Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - November 26, 20200 The place after the pandemic. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Old Delhi’s tea stalls make very milky and sweet chai. The venerable Modern Tea Stall with its not-so-modern wooden chairs and chipped china is different. Its tea is dark and karak (strong). Founded in 1967, this atmospheric destination on Haveli Azam Khan street was lying shuttered since the coronavirus-triggered lockdown in March. It reopened a month ago. Before the pandemic changed the texture of everyday routines, some of the area’s distinguished verse writers would gather in the tea house every evening (see the first photo below) to chat about the latest trends in contemporary Urdu poetry—as well as gossip about the private life of the poets. Indeed, the daily soirées of
City Life – Bhag Bahri Malhotra’s Nehru Park Connection, Safdarjang Enclave Life by The Delhi Walla - November 24, 20200 A routine of 40 years. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Pathways go up and down the many slopes. Distractions include flowers and fountains, lovers and joggers, chai wallas and chips sellers. Nehru Park runs along a tiny patch of the Aravali range of hills, so ancient that they are even older than the Himalayas. No surprises than the landscape is punctuated with rocks, some of which must be thousands and thousands of years old. So forty years is absolutely nothing in time for this park. Yet that short period does count for something in the case of Bhag Bahri Malhotra. In her late 80s, the lady has been enjoying morning walks in this central Delhi garden for those many years. She would come with
Debris of Life & Mind – Fashion Technology Student Simran’s Dream, Janakpuri, Delhi City Dreams by The Delhi Walla - November 24, 2020November 24, 20200 Sharing a dream. [Text by Simran, photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Once again I get rejected for the job that I have applied for, not directly am I told this, but I get to know of this via instagram stories of the employer. It leaves me heartbroken at the thought of losing another job that offered me my dream work. But more than that it leaves me sad about still not being able to swing into my choice of career. The rest is hazy, chaotic parts of this vague dream, until in the next moment I find myself screaming my lungs out staring at the results of my dream college. I have finally managed to crack the exam and will this way