Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Susana Zarco, Rajokri Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - November 17, 20210 The parlour confession. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] She reads poetry and makes her own dresses. The Lisbon-born Susana Zarco walks into her drawing room, looking like a woman in a Vermeer painting. She designed this white-and-blue gown from a cotton sari acquired during a trip to Kerala. “I only design for myself and for a few friends… I restrain from massification and quantity,” she murmurs, her headdress anointing her in a halo of the same colours as the rest of her dress. A former journalist who served for eight years as a press advisor to the Portuguese President, Ms Zarco, 57, has been in Delhi for three years. She is married to Portuguese Ambassador, Carlos Pereira Marques; they live in a sun-filled
City Landmark – Dharmender Kumar Soni’s Goldsmith Workshop, Nai Basti Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - November 17, 20210 Of slow time. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] So tiny, so pretty—these objects, piled up on the mantlepiece. While a large wooden board adorned with an array of rings and pendants invite a second look for their delicate craftsmanship. Here’s a shrine to dainty beauty located in the Millennium City of Gurgaon, but feels eons away from its prosaic modernity. Immersed in utmost quietude, this workshop in Nai Basti runs on the twin wheels of slow time and sustained concentration. Here you get customised lockets, rings, and necklace pendants handmade by Dharmender Kumar Soni, the goldsmith, or the sunar. An excessively courteous man in his 40s, Mr Soni talks of “these tough times” and passingly mentions that “like many others, we suffered
Mission Delhi – Arman, Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - November 17, 20210 One of the one percent in 13 million. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] The mask hawker isn’t pushy at all. He quietly follows a passerby, and upon catching the attention, politely asks if the person would be interested in buying a mask. He never badgers, whatever be the response. Among the city’s mask sellers, Arman is a veteran. Like most of them, he has been hawking masks since the coronavirus pandemic weaved into the fabric of our life. Arman is 12. “I want to join the army when I grow up,” he says. Agreeing to a brief chit-chat this cold evening, he sits outside a shuttered storefront, here in central Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti. Arman lives in the neighbourhood. “Papa isn’t well, so he stays