City Season – Gulmohar Blossoming, Around Town
Red rising. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] There’s fire raging these days across the city. The gulmohar trees are in scarlet bloom. Their flowering tend to be unpredictable. Sometimes they’re just a few vines of blossom in the…
City Faith – Lockdown Ramzan, Jama Masjid, Gurgaon
A world in pandemic. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The forever-optimistic Nashir Ahmed Khan in gloom? Impossible, you would think. But the second surge in the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything. “I’m badhal (in bad shape),” he says,…
City Life – Covid’s Street Life, Old Delhi
Life in the pandemic. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This narrow lane in the Walled City doesn’t go past any historic monument. No beautiful doorway opens into it. And yet, the lane shows so much. Especially these days,…
Mission Delhi – Chumki Sen, Sector 50, Gurgaon
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Why oh why did she get a house overlooking the main road, she feels, ten years after moving into it. At least she would have…
City History – Souvenir No. 1, In Search of Central Vista Lost
The place that was. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi’s Rajpath and the India Gate Grounds are being renovated as part of the Central Vista project. The beloved place as we knew it will cease to exist, but…
Mission Delhi – Protiti Bhattacharyya, West Kidwai Nagar
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] She is young and living through intense grief in this season of collective loss. Protiti Bhattacharyya, 22, a history student in the University of Hyderabad,…
City Season – Amaltas Bloom, Green Park & Elsewhere
A season of loss. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The tree is clothed in golden-yellow, but of a very pale shade. Amaltas flowers are known for more glow, more flamboyance. This tree, here in Green Park, must be…
City Life – Maryann Taylor’s Pandemic-Day Diary, DLF Phase 5, Gurgaon
Her life, these days. [Photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] No home is left untouched, directly or indirectly, by the current surge in the coronavirus pandemic. So how’s our daily life like? Freelance writer Maryann Taylor, 36, in Gugaon’s DLF Phase…
Mission Delhi – Muhammed Huzaifa, Covid ICU, AIIMS Trauma Center
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] These days, everybody wants to be a doctor’s best friend. So say hello to Muhammed Huzaifa, 24, a junior resident doctor in surgery at Delhi’s…
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