City Walk – David Street Part 1, Old Delhi Regions Walks by The Delhi Walla - February 23, 20250 The Old Delhi encyclopedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] In the olden times, when the Sunday Book Bazar of Mahila Haat unfolded every week along the long Daryaganj pave, it was the Lohe Wala Pul that marked the market’s last point. The foot-over iron bridge was dismantled more than a decade ago. That was the area’s first loss. The next landmark to go was barber Baldev Raj’s long-time pavement establishment at the foot of the bridge. Baldev Raj hasn’t been seen for three years. And aloo paratha vendor Abdul Rehman, who would set up his stall next to Baldev Raj, wasn’t seen for months until he returned a day ago. He was unwell, he explains. In brief, the opening segment of David
City Landmark – Govind Bhawan, Ansari Road Landmarks Walks by The Delhi Walla - February 21, 2025February 21, 20250 Architecture of a road. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The balcony’s long parapet and the screen above are arrayed out into airy pores. During the afternoon, the white sunlight percolates through these tiny pores, forming similar pattern of corresponding pores on the opaque wall behind. As the daylight alters, the patterns alter. Govind Bhawan is among the last remaining representative of Ansari Road’s old architecture. So what if the building looks shabby, the paint has discoloured, the parapet is blighted with hoardings, and a tiny portion of the air-and-concrete lattice is lying broken. This was two years ago. Today, Govind Bhawan is not looking like the Govind Bhawan of yesterday. The discolouration is gone, replaced by a mild green coating of
City Season – Pink Trumpet Tree, Lodhi Garden Life Nature Photo Essays by The Delhi Walla - February 20, 2025February 20, 20250 A beauty for the days. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Attached to the tips of stiff stalks, the pink flowers are defying gravity, rising upwards into the pitch blue sky. Dear reader, postpone all your plans, and head to Lodhi Garden. There, for a long time, a tree has been standing near the centuries-old Sheesh Gumbad, towards a corner of the monument-facing lawn. The tree looks unremarkable most of the year. But these days it is starkly standing out from all the other trees in the vast park. It is in a dense bloom. Not a single leaf is present to interrupt the floral cascades. Since the flowers are pink, and are shaped into a trumpet, they are called Pink Trumpet.
City Monument – Neeli Masjid at Night, Hauz Khas Enclave Monuments by The Delhi Walla - February 19, 20251 Blue monument. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is a different kind of pleasure that one derives from gazing upon a Delhi monument by the smoggy light of the day, than from what one experiences by gazing at it amid the smoggy blackness of the night. The centuries-old Neeli Masjid in Hauz Khas Enclave has been chronicled on this page. The Lodhi-era monument takes its name from the old neeli tiles that used to adorn the top of the arched doorway. Sadly, most of these blue tiles have been lost to time. A mere handful of them still cling to the sandstone edifice. During the day, you will have to summon up a lot of creative imagination to feel the
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Vishal Nagraj, Somewhere in Delhi Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - February 18, 20250 Portrait of a citizen. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is one of Delhi’s most enigmatic booksellers, dealing online in precious editions of classic novels. He tends to abruptly disappear from society causing a puzzled distress to his fellow booksellers, customers and acquaintances. As abruptly he re-emerges. This afternoon, Vishal Nagraj is sighted in a city bookstore after a long spell of disappearance. He agrees 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. The principal aspect of your personality. I’m mostly lost. Your chief characteristic. I’m a sketcher. I like drawing sketches of writers… Emily Dickinson, James Baldwin, Szymborska, Joan Didion, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Anna
City Walk – Kucha Dakhni Rai, Old Delhi Life Walks by The Delhi Walla - February 17, 20250 The Walled City encyclopedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Green turban, black apron and saffron beard. Such a stately man—he must be Dakhni Rai himself. He is actually Zakib. He has been administering his corner chai stall for 30 years in Kucha Dakhni Rai (see photo). Like everybody else encountered this afternoon in the quiet Walled City kucha, he too is ignorant of Dakhni Rai, and assumes that the man who gave his name to the street “must have been a well-known elder.” Kucha traditionally implies a lane of dwellers sharing the same occupation. It is startling to discover that unlike other Purani Dilli kuchas, Kucha Dakhni Rai continues to deserve its kucha id. The lane is lined with the
Mission Delhi – Jaisul, Central Delhi Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - February 17, 2025February 17, 20251 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This time the Delhi winter passed in a jiffy. Jaisul is relieved about the season’s premature passing. He’s a rickshaw puller, he explains, and his business always plummets during the winter. Even so, he made a good use of the cold weeks, he says. He did so by boarding the Seemanchal Express for his Bihar village in janpad Araria. He came back a week ago. “I hadn’t visited my family for almost a year,” he says after dropping off a customer one late night in a central Delhi colony. “Two months ago, when my eldest son called me on mobile, saying, ‘Papa, ab aa jao,’ I went
Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Valentines’s Day Verses, Ghalib’s Tomb City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - February 14, 20250 Love lines. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Wild nights - Wild nights! Were I with thee Wild nights should be Our luxury! This love verse was penned by America’s Emily Dickinson. The poet of Amherst was writing her passion poems around the same time when a world away another poet was writing his equally passionate poems—our Dilli’s Mirza Ghalib! This Valentine’s Day, here’s a selection of some of Ghalib’s romantic verses. All that you have to do, dear reader, is to go o Lodhi Garden, and read aloud these lines amid bees, bougainvilleas, and the park’s many dogs. (The verses have been chosen by poetry scholar Aqil Ahmad of Delhi’s Ghalib Academy who spends his days editing and annotating the lines that young folks
City Homes – Last Taak, Old Delhi Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - February 13, 20250 On domestic architecture. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Purani Dilli merchant Saeed Mirza lives with his siblings and their families in a 150-year-old house. It possesses architectural elements of a quintessential Walled City mansion. Every room for instance has at least one taak, the arch-shaped niche scooped into the wall. The joint family is set to move to a recently built residence on the same street. The new “flat-style” house has no taak. Indeed, the taak, that has so long been an integral part of the Walled City’s old-fashioned household architecture—it is almost a family member!— is now nearing extinction. (The custom of taak of course isn’t limited to the historic quarter). In a typically traditional Walled City mansion, the taak would
City Landmark – Signature Bridge, North Delhi Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - February 12, 20250 Portrait of an infrastructural utility. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is true. The cables at the Signature Bridge do resemble the strings of a harp. They are almost waiting to be plucked! Who knows a strong breeze might do the needful, sounding a sudden pang in the polluted air. Tall, stately and yet possessing such a minimalist body, the north Delhi infrastructural utility spans smoothly over the river Yamuna. Said to be double the height of Qutub Minar, it came up in 2018 as India’s first asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge. This afternoon, the edifice is looking as light as the fluffy clouds speckled across the sky. The bridge is actually weighed down with very many speeding cars and autos. Indeed,