The moveable feast. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Once upon a time, in the 1970s, a man called Banda Hasan would daily set up a desk and an angeethi by a bazar lane, rustling out a kebab stall. Like most street seekhs, the ones by him were tasty and affordable. Slowly-slowly the man became popular, and came to be known as Khan Chacha. The bazar was Khan Market. (No, Khan Market isn’t named after this legendary figure. The bazar takes its name from…. Google it!) Among India’s priciest commercial destinations, Khan Market is full of tiptop cafés and restaurants where the richie-rich show off their guccis and pradas. Some of us as well enjoy burning our hard-earned cash in

The autumn of the sherbet. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Its days are numbered. It is evoking the doomed spirit of one of those very many Walled City landmarks that are fated to soon disappear. Except that each time it vanishes, it resurfaces after a brief interlude. Always. This street-side stall serves a refreshment rarely served elsewhere in Old Delhi’s labyrinthine alleys. A thandi drink rustled out of jaggery, the stall’s gur ka sherbet is a summertime speciality. A visit to the stall at this time of the year is thrilling because of the following factors: a) Although gur itself is often consumed in winter, gur ka sherbet is a thirst quencher for the sweltering month of May and June, and

Dining chez Humayun's. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] They say that years ago a canteen existed inside the Humayun Tomb monument complex, under a semal tree. It is now a part of our city’s barely remembered past. On the other hand, it is always like a bustling food court outside the monument’s ticket counter space, on the wide pave that overlooks the Subz Burj traffic circle. The place teems with snack stalls. Each stall is a modest enterprise, each doles out tasty snack. As seen on Monday evening, there is malai kulfi stall by Sunil, jaljeera stall by Neeraj, biscuit-and-chips stall by Shahana, golgappa stall by Sachin, ice-cream carts by Owais and Imran respectively, samosa and heeng-wale-khasta-kachori stall by Manoj (see

A sweet walkathon. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Tell all the truth but tell it slant. These are Emily Dickinson’s words. The poet from Amherst must have been a devotee of sweet delicious jalebi, which too is anything but straight. Here’s a citywide tour of the twisty dessert, starting from a classic landmark and ending at a rather lesser-known destination. What Humayun’s Tomb is to Mughal monuments, Old Famous Jalebi Wala is to jalebis. The Chandni Chowk establishment (since 1884; founder: Nemchand Jain; “we have no other branch in Delhi & NCR”) stands at the turning to Dariba Kalan. Start the experience by watching the cook in action (he could be any of these: Bachha Ram, Saurabh, Arun, Vikesh). Ensconced

Into an aspect of Walled City cuisine. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] “Beauty’s rose might never die; roses have thorns… I have seen roses damask’d, but no roses see I in her cheeks.” These are some of Shakespeare’s many literary roses; the rose appears 13 times in his immortal love sonnets. If Shakespeare, like Ghalib, had been a dweller of Old Delhi, his 154 sonnets would have had far more roses. For cakes and pastries in many Purani Dili bakeries tend to sculpt their creamy icing into the likeness of rose. This afternoon, at Sikander Confectionery near Kucha Chelan, a creamy white cake is topped with a green rose and a red rose. A cake in Lakshmi Confectionery Shop, on Tiraha Bairam

Rainy day fries [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] When it rains, one feels for the Minto Road bridge. The central Delhi underpass almost always gets flooded. Truth be told, extreme weather trends has robbed Delhi monsoon of its traditional charm. Anyways, for years the pakoda cart in Gurugram railway station has strived for an idyllic July-August experience, bonding itself to the trinity of train travel, spicy deep-fried tidbits and the barsat. The platform’s snack cart has a long record of rustling out punchy green chilli pakodas.The green chilli would tend to be long and slim—these are the ones that are truly hot!--but the fried batter coating would bring down the heat a notch or two. That said, even a most average

To Mirza with love [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Mubarak, season’s most idyllic scene just sighted. A mango cart parked right beside the tomb of Delhi’s greatest poet—see photo. It is a truth universally acknowledged that nobody can fully crack Delhi without understanding Mirza Ghalib. And nobody can fully crack Mirza Ghalib without understanding his passion for mangoes. Luckily, the freely accessible library of Ghalib Academy stands next to the poet’s mazar in central Delhi, and one of the many Urdu books in the metal shelves—Sharah Diwan-e-Ghalib by Dr Qazi Sayeduddin—contains a vast oeuvre of kissa-kahani from Ghalib’s life and works. A few of those stories vividly tell of the poet’s utmost devotion to our king of fruits. (Statutory recommendation: best to

Joys of jamun. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Scene 1: He is carrying them in a straw basket, which is perched on his head. Scene 2: He is hauling them on a cart. Scene 3: She has filled them in a plastic bucket and is sitting by the road. This is peak mango season, but the three citizens are not hawking the sweet aam. Their offering is slightly sour and a bit “kasaila.” It is the jamun. Delhi has many jamun trees, and right now they are loaded with their little spherical offerings. The berry tends to detach itself from the branch, hitting the earth with a soft thud, the purple juice sometimes squirting out in a jerky shot. On a Sewa Nagar pave,

Exploring the city in the time sof extreme heat. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Perched across the road from one of the very few surviving stone gateways of the Walled City, this modest 44-year-old tea stall commands reverence for successfully surviving through these furiously changing times, when far more muscular Old Delhi institutions couldn’t. The gentle Bhai Subhan, who talks so softly that you have to strain your ears to hear him, arrived from Muzaffarpur in Bihar, and, by accident of circumstances, chose this site to set up his establishment. This evening, he recalls those long-ago days. “A patri bazar existed here… a stall for khameeri rotiyan, a stall for biryani, a stall for halwa-paratha… mine too was one of those, except