City Landmark – Mobile Phone Statues, South Extension General Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - September 30, 20230 Installations in a changing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] See the smiling woman on the bench staring at her mobile. Maybe she’s reading a WhatsApp joke, or binge-watching those funny Instagram reels with high-pitched laughing sound effects. We’ll never know. The phone isn’t real, nor the woman. This statue is a new addition to the city’s public art installations. So new that it might just have been installed this day itself. A garland of fresh gendaphool is strung around her neck, here at the plaza atop the metro station in South Extension 2. The statue is extremely arresting because it is so relatable. Look around at the fellow humans in flesh and blood. Each is with a mobile. There is no
Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Esha Rajan, Najafgarh City Poetry General by The Delhi Walla - September 28, 2023September 28, 20230 Poet in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] She is a poet and she lives in Najafgarh, so it is logical to call her a poet of Najafgarh. But the assertion holds true only up to a point. True, Esha Rajan has grown up in this zipcode far from Delhi’s city center, and she does know the gallis and gateways of Najafgarh, and she fondly talks of its winter-season mustard fields. But her true karma bhoomi, the land where she came of age, happens to be the campuses of Delhi University. Esha became more deeply acquainted with herself at Jesus and Mary College in the South Campus, where she graduated, and at the Arts Faculty in the North Campus
City Landmark – Bargad Tree, GB Road Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - September 22, 20230 Like a guard [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Like a conscientious guard, it stands rigid and upright at the starting point of GB Road, also known as Shradhanand Marg. The road is lined with shops that sell toilet fittings, and establishments of sex workers on their upper floors. The tree is gigantic. Its swollen foliage has colonized both sides of the road, and its probing branches are touching the upper portions of the ramshackle buildings. Because of the tree’s massive scope, it is astonishing to discover that the great tree is miraculously growing out of something as insignificant and soilless as a road divider. The bulky trunk is sprouting out from deep within the concrete. The divider looks severely damaged,
City Landmark – Phool Mandi, Daryaganj Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - September 19, 20230 Brassai's stones. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Parisian Cobblestones, shot in 1931. It is one of the most iconic photographs by Brassai, the celebrated chronicler of nighttime Paris. Our Delhi is not Brassai’s Paris. But this place in our city comes very close to that great photo. Here, on the ground beneath your feet, you shall find the exact pattern of Brassai’s cobblestones (Google it). This is Daryaganj, at the Phool Mandi. The name suggests that the Mandi, market, must be selling phool, flowers. But very many Old Delhi dwellers flock to the Mandi early in the morning to get fresh vegetables, which arrive straight from the Azadpur Subzi Mandi in the north of the city, where they arrive daily from
City Hangout – Altering Indian Coffee House, Mohan Singh Place Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - September 17, 20230 A changing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The discreet way the daylight streams through the glass windows has remained the same. The silhouette-like reflection of the people falling on the tiled wall hasn’t changed much, either. The time as well seems to be moving with the same slowness. Ditto the whirring sound of the ceiling fans, and the starched turbans and the red cummerbund of the senior stewards. Things haven’t changed greatly at the timeless Indian Coffee House (circa 1950s). In some other ways, things have changed, especially inside the main hall, that alcove of solitude, shade and overextended conversations. Some of the elderly regulars are no longer spotted. The chipped wooden tables have gone. The rexine sofas have gone, replaced
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Muhammed Saleem, Connaught Lane Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - September 15, 2023September 15, 20230 The parlour confession. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] A glass cabinet containing dozens of keys forms the backdrop of his pavement kiosk. Key maker Muhammed Saleem have been manning this modest Connaught Lane landmark for decades. A while ago, this afternoon, a monkey from the adjacent tree suddenly jumped onto his counter, but he showed no alarm (as if they were friends), calmly agreeing to become a part of our Proust Questionnaire series in which citizens are nudged to make “Parisian parlour confessions”, all to explore our distinct experiences. Faults for which you have the most tolerance. People spewing out gaalis (swear words). The principal aspect of your personality. Mera kaam (my work). What do you appreciate the most in your friends? That they understand my feelings. Your main fault. Laziness. Your
City Faith – Night-Long Qawwali, Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya’s Dargah Faith by The Delhi Walla - September 12, 20230 The rest is noise. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is world-famous for its qawwalis, the sufi shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. The dargah’s most special night in the year falls tonight. The qawwalis will be offered at the marble courtyard from late night to early morning, to mark the 809th Jashn-e-Wiladat, or birthday celebrations, of the shrine’s patron saint. The performers will include all the eight chowkiya, qawwali troupes, of the dargah. Visitors to Hazrat Nizamuddin’s shrine are naturally most thrilled on spotting Chand Nizami. Leader of the dargah’s Nizami Bandhu troupe, he famously appeared in a blockbuster cinema qawwali (“Kun faya kun”) filmed in this same courtyard with actor Ranbir Kapoor. But reader, as you tonight attend the classics
City Landmark – New Bharat Hair Dresser, Khan Market Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - September 11, 2023September 12, 20230 The market story. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Muse, let’s again sing of the tony Khan Market. The fashionable front lane has a foreign-origin confectionary; something like the Haldiram of Paris. It opened during the pandemic, and by now seems so rooted to the posh soil-soul of the market that it is difficult to recall the showroom that formerly stood on its site. Similarly, on the market’s cobbled back lane stands a high-end boutique. It is a recent landmark. What had stood before there? Well, why don’t you try plucking out the right answer from this list of lost Khan Market landmarks, which live only in memories—Sovereign Dairies, Raj Sweet Shop, Empire Stores, Caryhom Ice Cream, Modern Hair Dressers, Pat a
City Landmark – Five Graves, Around Town Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - September 9, 2023September 9, 20230 In the city of tomns. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Good puzzle would be to cross Delhi without passing a grave. Sometimes anonymous graves lie clustered in neighbourhood alleys (see photo). Here are the city’s five lesser known but significant graves. First couple The marble slab bearing the Ashoka seal describes him as “A gentle colossus” and her as the “First Lady of India’.” President K.R. Narayanan’s ashes lies interred here, at the Christian Cemetery on Prithviraj Road. His wife, the Burma-born Usha, was buried at the same place. He died in 2005. She died three years later. The grave is also engraved with her birth name, Ma Tint Tint. A pomegranate tree leans over the couple. Martyr of ‘65 He lies buried at
City Food – Om Pal’s Parantha Cart, Satsang Vihar Road Food by The Delhi Walla - September 8, 2023September 8, 20230 Life of a cart. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The two peepal are picturesque, but he didn’t chose the spot 25 years ago for these eye catchers. Back then, the trees anyway must have not been as luscious. He chose the site “because even then many offices were here, and I had thought that if I do the job well, the people in these offices might become my customers”. Decades later, he turned out to be right. Om Pal, now middle-aged, says this with eyes firmly focused towards the aloo parantha he is rustling out on his modest cart, here on Satsang Vihar Marg. This afternoon, the snack cart has been mobbed by his regular customers. Some men are asking for his