City Walk – The Lane Along Red Fort, Old Delhi Monuments Walks by The Delhi Walla - January 11, 20230 The best stroll. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sailing into the Red Fort used to be so smooth. You would buy the ticket, queue up by the entrance and slip in. This was before the pandemic. Now that easy access to the monument lie barricaded, and the ticket counter has moved to the fort’s northern extremity. The visitor must walk for half a kilometre before reaching the entrance. Many of us see this as an unnecessary inconvenience. But many of us also perennially crib about how walking unfriendly our Delhi is. The truth is that this long-winded path to Lal Qila is arguably the most stunningly picturesque walking trail in the entire Delhi-NCR. The smooth road is wide, tree-lined, with no
Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Sweety Mamta’s Love Poem, Cyberhub City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - January 11, 20230 Poetry in the city. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Cheery, chatty and confident—her friendly voice and her gently streaming batcheet are like that of a radio jockey. But then she is one of those RJs, and works in a “web radio,” here in Gurgaon. Mamta (pen name: Sweety Mamta) is also a poet. This evening, standing right in the middle of a crowded shopping plaza in the futuristic Cyberhub, she tells of a love poem she wrote some months ago: “ I closely observe the ups and downs in the relationships my friends go through.… but this prem kavita is not about any particular person or episode.” Having finished her master’s in Hindi literature from Hindu College last year, Mamta is not only