City Landmark – Hazrat Amir Khusrau’s 720th Urs, Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya’s Dargah
A poet-saint’s anniversary [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] As monuments go by, it is not instantly striking. But it is cloaked in rich layers of histories. In the beginning, it was just a marble grave and remained so…
City Landmark – Sahibabad RRTS Station, Ghaziabad
Learning to see a new landmark. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It looks like an ocean liner stranded in plain land, far from the sea it belongs to. This is a fairly new landmark in zila Ghaziabad, that…
City Landmark – Chicken Corner & Maktaba Bookstore, Urdu Bazar
Story of bookstores. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Chicken Corner. Is that what the great bookstore has become? No disrespect to the pavement eatery, but it is right outside the bookstore, blocking the access to the shuttered front…
City Landmark – Shah Music Centre, Netaji Subhash Road
For the record. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Gone. Shah Music Centre had hundreds of LPs. Those ‘Long Play’ discs storing half hour of music, before needing to be turned over, have long been out of use, but…
City Landmark – Promenade Books, Hauz Khas Village
Life in the village. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Outside, Jack Kerouac’s poster is staring from the glass wall. Inside, black shelves are stacked with Nietzsche, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, etc. Delhi’s newest bookstore opened ten…
City Landmark – Anwar’s Shaving Salon, Near Gole Market
Hajamat arbour. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Found. A serene impressionistic haven to get a haircut—or a hajamat (shave) if you will. Anwar’s pavement stall beside central Delhi’s Gole Market is austere. Some might though label it among…
City Landmark – Vikram Seth’s Florist, Hazrat Nizamuddin East
A hyperlocal business . [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] One icy noon, two winters ago, a tiny red car halted by a pavement florist. The driver’s door flapped open, a chap emerged. He walked up to the florist,…
City Landmark – Bedil’s Tomb & Bharat Mandapam, Mathura Road
Long-ago poet these times. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi is changing so fast. Just across the road are the sleek edifices of Pragati Maidan’s Bharat Mandapam. They came up last year, replacing the decades-old Hall of Nations….
City Landmark – Art Gallery, Ghalib Academy
Poetry intersecting with painting. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] He seems so far from the world of today, but Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan Ghalib died only 155 years ago, aged 72. This being the great poet’s death anniversary,…
City Landmark – Bani Temple, Gurgaon
A shrine with a view. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] So surreal. These gigantic stalagmites stranded in the polluted air. They are actually far-off business towers, their view diffused in the winter fog. The scene shifts with a…
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