City Food – Ambey Tea Stall, Lado Sarai Food by The Delhi Walla - December 11, 20240 A stall is born [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] “Chai/Coffee. Garma-garam poori. Aloo ki subzi. Garam-garam parathe.” It is all handwritten in black. The white A4 sheets are taped across the stall’s street-facing side. A woman is standing behind the counter. Her one arm is managing the agitated chai in the pan, the other arm is adjusting the stack of puffy pooris on an adjacent plate. The handwriting on the sheets belongs to this woman. “This is my stall,” she says. Neetu founded Ambey Tea Stall 15 days ago, here in south Delhi’s Lado Sarai. Her entire family is at the stall this evening. Mother Geeta, bhabhi Pooja, bhabhi’s two little girls Prisha and Nisha, and Neetu’s husband Ajay, who has slipped
City Food – Shakarkandi Stalls, Around Town Food by The Delhi Walla - December 10, 20240 The sweet potato civilisation [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] His face is exuding as much affectionate calmness as the great tree of this three-way tiraha. Both are area’s landmarks. The tree, it seems, has been here at Old Delhi’s Tiraha Behram Khan since the beginning of time. The middle-aged Raju too has become an element of the locality’s lived memory. He has been manning a corner of the tiraha for three decades, his modest cart bearing the season’s changing fruits all through the year. And with the arrival of the cold season, Raju has switched to shakarkandi. The fruit is a part of Delhi’s distinctive wintertime ambiance. Indeed, scores of street vendors across the city shift their loyalty to shakarkandi
Mission Delhi – Ranjeet Chaudhary, Hauz Khas Village Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - December 9, 20240 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] He can cook all of the Gunpowder khana. As for Gunpowder, that place was Delhi’s most talked about restaurant for a time (circa 2010). Ranjeet Chaudhary used to work in the kitchen. After it shut down in fashionable Hauz Khas Village and moved south to Goa, he too moved, staying with the restaurant. Now Ranjeet is back in Hauz Khas Village. Last week, he started a new job in the village. It is in an Airbnb guesthouse where he is not a chef, but a housekeeper required to clean the rooms. “I’m grateful to get the work, but ultimately I want to get back to a restaurant kitchen,”
City Neighbourhood – Chatta Jaam Beg, Old Delhi Hangouts Life by The Delhi Walla - December 9, 20240 The Walled City encyclopaedia [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] No horses here any longer. Haven’t been seen for a long, long time. They aren’t even part of anybody’s lived memory. The horses have become a legend, and so have their “tabele,” the stables. But during the Badshah raaj, when the Mughals commanded the empire from the Red Fort, this Old Delhi street had tabele for horses. That must had also been a time when Jaam Beg hadn’t yet become a myth. Today, the man who gave his name to the street is remembered only as mister somebody who was VIP enough to have got the honorific title of ‘beg.’ Like any classical Purani Dilli street, Chatta Jaam beg in Tiraha
City Life – The Road Divider, Asaf Ali Road Life by The Delhi Walla - December 5, 20240 On lives of fellow citizens [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The acclimated conditions for the area’s homeless citizens to spend nights on the long road divider have ended, here at Asaf Ali Road. For most of the year, this open air stretch in central Delhi serves as their preferred place for night rest. One reason being that the road’s late-hour vehicular traffic successfully wards off the mosquitoes, as attested by a few of the citizens who sleep on the divider. Plus, something must also be said about the divider’s many trees, which make the summertime heat somewhat less unbearable, according to the same citizens. But now the disruptive December cold is making the nights chilly. Most of the men who
Mission Delhi – Nizam, Dilli Gate Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - December 5, 20240 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] During the days of extreme pollution, a week ago, his eyes were burning as if someone had flung red chilli powder into them, he says, here on the smoggy street-side, near Dilli Gate metro station, just across the road from the historic Dilli Gate monument. His breathing wasn’t feeling right either. Nizam, a young street snack seller, knew it wasn’t his eyes (or lungs) per se, but the extreme Delhi pollution that arrives every year with the start of cold season. “This winter problem has been with us for many years, and it will stay with us forever,” he declares matter-of-factly. Nizam talks of his village in UP’s
City Nature – Amaltas Tree in Winter, Mathura Road Life Nature by The Delhi Walla - December 3, 20240 Ali's Amaltas [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Winters have begun. The year’s summer has matured into a memory, along with all the aspects associated with it, including the city’s Amaltas trees that blossom in the time of extreme heat. One of the most picturesque Amaltas spectacles this year was witnessed on the smoggy Mathura Road. The tree stands beside a fruit juice-and-shake kiosk. This summer (and monsoon as well), it was packed with so many golden-yellow flowers that their combined weight made the showy branches droop. All day long, the flowers would keep falling on the pave, and yet the tree wouldn’t show even a hint of this continual loss. As if the falling flowers were being instantly replaced by
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Saraswati Giri, Paharganj General by The Delhi Walla - December 2, 20240 Portrait of a sanyasi. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] She is sitting in a café in backpackers’ Paharganj, busy over a plate of stuffed paratha and super-spicy mixed achar. The lunch accompaniments include a glass of steaming garma-garam chai and a pack of beedis. She is obviously a regular to the place, for the young café owner is chatting with her after the manner of a long-time acquaintance, addressing her respectfully as Mata ji. In her 70s, Victoria grew up in Andalusia in Spain. She first arrived in India in the 1970s, and since then has been coming frequently to our land, often staying for long continuous stretches of time. Once she lived for a year in her beloved Kashi. Some
City Neighbourhood – Kucha Chelan, Old Delhi Hangouts Walks by The Delhi Walla - December 1, 2024December 1, 20240 The Walled City encyclopedia [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This Old Delhi street should be called Gali Good Luck. The street has Good Luck Tailors, Good Luck Tea Stall and Good Luck Hair Salon. The place is actually Kucha Chelan, and it actually has a very bad luck past. Following the 1857 uprising, the avenging British massacred 1,400 citizens here. Those martyrs must have comprised some of Old Delhi’s wealthiest gentry, for Kucha Chelan’s name is said to have evolved from Chehel Amiran, forty wealthy men. Today, no sign of that violent history exists. All is serene along the lane, the serenest aspect being a small gurudwara. Every morning, an elderly lady is seen seated crosslegged beside the holy
City Monument – Nili Masjid & Nila Gumbad, Historic Delhi Monuments by The Delhi Walla - November 29, 2024November 29, 20240 Monuments to the blue. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] In this season of pollution, to look for any blue in the sky is a timepass in vain. Fret not. You may find blue, or nila, in two little-known Delhi monuments, starting with their names. The Nili Masjid in Hauz Khas Enclave presumably takes its name from a row of blue tiles inlaid atop its arched gateway. Most tiles are sadly gone, the empty squares marking the loss. Nevertheless, the small mosque has richly detailed interiors. The stone surface of the central dome is sculpted with dozens of niched taak, a disappearing element in traditional architecture. As a token to the name, a handful of modern-day inscriptions painted on the