City Season – Cloud Watching, Around Town Nature by The Delhi Walla - July 20, 2022July 20, 20220 Cloud spotter's guide. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The sky upon a rutty lane in Noida’s Sector 15A splintered into hundreds of cumulus clouds, as if the milk curdled. While in Hazrat Nizamuddin East, the historic Humayun Tomb abruptly vanished. Today is the first week of saawan, the fifth month in the Hindu calendar. Our dull Delhi sky has suddenly become instagrammable in this season of showers. The other afternoon, a cavalcade of aimless clouds lazily drifted over the treetops and office towers of Kasturba Gandhi Marg. Nobody looked up. The indifference isn’t a pandemic. The twitter is overcast these days with cloud photos snapped by Delhiites from balconies, roofs, parks and monuments. Monsoon is indeed nature’s gift to nephophiles, the cloud
City Walk – Shah Abul Khair, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - July 20, 20220 World of a street. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sometimes a lone man might be sitting by the grand doorway, watching the passerby go along the street. Sometimes, there’s a crowd of idle men. From 1 pm to 5pm daily, cook Danish parks his paya cart by the doorway. Facing the Big Boss Saloon, this arched portal is the social focus of Shah Abul Khair Marg, which lies between the Walled City’s Turkman Gate and Chitli Qabar Chowk. The commonness of the street is drastically uplifted by this light green gateway. It is the area’s Tiananmen Square, where local telltales gather to exchange news and gossip. The street takes its name from a Sufi saint whose grave lies in the shrine
Mission Delhi – Arvind, Adhchini Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - July 20, 20220 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The houses are withdrawn into shut doors and lidded windows. The lane is utterly silent, here in south Delhi’s Adhchini village. The pathway is empty but for two young men. Both are labourers living in Lado Sarai, and are here for an assignment. Prakash is perched on somebody’s parked bike, sitting as courteously as a shy guest sits on the sofa. Arvind, in distressed denim shorts, is crouched on the muddy ground. Moments ago he scissored out uniform-sized stripes of plastic flap folds from a cement sack. “I’m making a ber,” he says, referring to an improvised cap often worn by freelance labourers to cushion their head
City Walk – Lohe Wala Pul, Daryaganj Walks by The Delhi Walla - July 18, 2022July 20, 20220 A vanished world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] What if Delhi disappears. Will the land where it stood still be known as Delhi? This is precisely the posthumous destiny of Lohe Wala Pul, the foot-over bridge of loha, or iron, that used to span upon a traffic light crossing on Netaji Subhash Marg. The bridge was dismantled in the pre-instagram era. On googling, the search engine spews out images of the capital’s Lohe ka Pul rail bridge upon the Yamuna instead. Even so, while in Daryaganj, try to ask any random person the way to Lohe Wala Pul, and you shall be directed to the vanished landmark. In the old days, when the Sunday Book Bazar was hosted in Daryaganj, the Jama
City Hangout – Gate No. 1, Jama Masjid Metro Station Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - July 16, 2022July 17, 20220 An accidental refuge. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The cold blast hits you as soon as you enter the foyer. The sweat on your skin instantly dissipates. It is like steppping inside the lobby of a 5-star hotel in the sweltering month of May. But this is the gate no. 1 of Jama Masjid metro station. The chilly air is coming out from the air-conditioned environs of the underground station. Truth be told, such breeze is experienced at the portals of many air-conditioned places, including at the entries of many metro stations, but the effect is mostly limited to the vicinity around the door. Here the entire area has become a non-heat island. The chill is so intense that The Delhi
Mission Delhi – Sona, Vasundhara Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - July 14, 20220 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is looking at a face. The face is looking back at him. Does he realise it is his own reflection in the rain puddle? Sona cannot be called a street dog because there is no real street here. This is a suburb. The roads are wide and straight, with little to no traffic, no crowds, no hidden lanes, and hardly any street life. These roads are merely passages to access the multi-storied apartment complexes lined up along them, here at Vasundhara in Ghaziabad. Each of the vertical blocks of concrete is like an autonomous principality, with high walls patrolled by uniformed guards. The black dog lives
City Walk – Golcha Cinema, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - July 14, 20221 World of a street. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Despite being a mere courtesan, Anarkali dares Emperor Akbar with a spunky dance. The lyrics of the song are so seditious that the audience get up from their seat and start to clap. It is 2010. Golcha cinema, in Daryaganj, is screening the digitally coloured version of the classic Mughal-e-Azam. Today, it all feels as unsubstantial as a dream. The single-screen hall shut down six years ago (last movie screened was Kahani 2). This afternoon, in front of the shuttered lobby, the venerable Ajay Veer is running his stall of eye glasses — his right foot is bandaged. A young barefoot man is lying asleep outside another shuttered door. One of the doors
City Obituary – Shabana Banu, Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti Life by The Delhi Walla - July 12, 2022July 12, 20220 A life, passed. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] No sign of her things—neither of her bundle, that served as a pillow at night, nor of her hand fan. She had been living on this spot of the pavement for more than 40 years, here in Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti. Shabana Banu died about three weeks ago. Sadiq, an alm seeker like her who lives on this same pave, recalls the fateful morning. “She was sleeping on the patri, covered in a (rain-proof) plastic sheet, for it had rained at night…. some unknown biker ran his wheel upon her leg.” Sadiq woke up at 5 am on hearing Shabana Banu cry in pain. The elderly woman asked him to get her a glass
City Walk – Chatta Chuhiya Mem, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - July 9, 20220 World of a street. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] How was she like? What were her passions and pursuits, her joys and despairs? Where is her grave? There are no answers. Nothing substantial is known about this mysterious figure. And yet, a neighbourhood in Old Delhi is named after her name — well, not after her real name, for even that we do not know. This unknown woman was nicknamed as Chuhiya Mem, a mousey ma’am, and she lived in what is today known as Chatta Chuhiya Mem. “Her home was in this very street during the time the British ruled our country… she was a Mem because she was an angrez lady, and she was very dubli, as thin as a
City Life – Handwritten Sentiments, Around Town Life by The Delhi Walla - July 9, 2022July 9, 20221 Or lives in chits and scraps. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] “If we lose this, we lose everything”— and so concludes the romantic note, handwritten by a person to their beloved at the back of a Khan Market restaurant receipt. It was found abandoned in a bookstore there. Intimate correspondences aren’t exceptional. Everyone nowadays is typing ditties either on WhatsApp, or Instagram, or Facebook, or Twitter. But sentimental thoughts thrown on scraps of paper are rarer — and yet, the metropolis is full of such precious litter, abandoned here and there in public spaces. Their handwritten character makes them tangible records of aspects of our life unfolding outside of the Internet. Over the years, The Delhi Walla has constituted an