City Season – Best Bougainvillea Show, Chelmsford Road
Season’s gift. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Cancel all appointments, postpone all deadlines, and rush to Chelmsford Road. Close to the New Delhi railway station, this spot might be hosting the best bougainvillea show in our megapolis. No…
City Season – Leaf Fall, Around Town
Season’s losses. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] See—a biscuit packet, a chips packet, a juice tetra-pack, an orange sachet, two paper cups, a plastic thaila, another plastic thaila, one more plastic thaila… all empty. These discards are many…
City Season – Annie Ernaux & Bougainvillea Blossoming, Around Town
The face of bougainvillaea. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Now we know the true face of bougainvillea. It has searching eyes, blond hair, a glorious glow, and, on cool evenings, it holds a glass of white wine and…
City Season – Semal Blossoming, Yamuna Bank and Around Town
On the brief spring. [Text and photo Mayank Austen Soofi] You spot the tree in the morning commute. It looks like a thing at the cusp of loveliness. You don’t make much of it. Being busy, you carry on with…
City Nature – Floss-Silk Trees in Blossom, Kamani Auditorium & Elsewhere
Consolation of winter [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The pink of the flower is as boldly surkh (ruddy) as the jama (coat) that Shahjahan is depicted wearing in a famous portrait he commissioned to artist Chitarman. As Delhi-NCR…
City Life – Winter Pollution, Everywhere in Delhi
Mother, daughter and smog. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] This smoggy morning, the throat is wheezy, the eyes are burning, and the head is throbbing to a very mild mysterious ache. Engineering graduate Paridhi Narayan Singh (left) is standing with her…
City Nature – Saptaparni Tree in Bloom, India International Center & Other Places
Devil’s shrub [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Silence, all. Suddenly—plop! Something falls. A bunch of pale green flowers is lying on the ground, here outside an old bungalow in Gurugram’s New Railway Road, close to pavement tailor Muhammed…
City Season – Sky Watching, Gurgaon
Season’s scenes [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The sleek Rapid Metro train is sliding noiselessly along the elevated tracks. The glass windows of the high-rises are gleaming under the noonday sun. And tufts of greying clouds are wafting…
City Season – Cloud Watching, Around Town
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…
City Season – Monsoon Spaces, Around Town
Rain-drenched city. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] “A little tap on the window-pane, as though something had struck it, followed by a plentiful light falling sound, as of grains of sand being sprinkled from a window overhead, gradually…
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