City Hangout – July Cloud Watching, Around Town
The pleasure of merely circulating. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Full of the pomp and stateliness of emeritus professors, they are broodily sauntering about the empty space, indulging in the rarefied pleasures of merely circulating. These clouds of…
City Walk – Monsoon Stroll, Civil Lines
Civil Lines impressionism. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] A well-known couple residing in upscale Civil Lines, in north Delhi, recently checked themselves for a few days into a room at the India International Center (Annexe). Reason: their area…
City Life – Delhi Floods, 2023
The bridge under the Yamuna. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi has more than 15 road bridges spanning over the Yamuna. In the city’s worst flood in 45 years, here’s a sequence of interactions with the citizens and…
City Season – Heatwave Citizens, Around Town
June is the cruellest month. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water……
City Season – Summertime Rains, Around Town
Pseudo-monsoon. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Evening rush. Forceful breeze harping wildly through the clogged avenues. Suddenly the cloudy sky breaks. Illumined by the street lamps, the rain projectiles become starkly visible, pouring down on earth like iambs…
City Season – Amaltas at Night, Around Town
Angels of the darkness. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] 8pm, a roadside close to the Rose Garden, Sector 15 Part 1, Gurgaon: Gilded petals stranded in mid-air. These are Amaltas’s golden-yellow blossoms at night. The tree itself is…
City Season – Amaltas Sighting, Near Sunder Nursery
Summer’s cool envoy. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Are they really real or are they Artificial Intelligence real? AI-generated images are going viral these days. Can these be one of those fakes? No, the blossoms turn out to…
City Season – Jacaranda Blossoming, Humayun Tomb & Elsewhere
Purple prose. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] That’s not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually not even cerulean blue. This is just purple, with no brighter colour to compete with it under the smoggy…
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…
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