City Landmark – Plaza Saloon, Connaught Place
Like a monument. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] With dark wood panelling and window display of stately wigs, its exterior inflicts awe. Must be one of those high-end hairdressing places where the welcoming stylists just cannot trim down…
City Landmark – Metalsmith Muhammed Ikram’s Workshop, Galli Chooriwallan
Museum of metal. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Metal coerced into a multitude of shapes. All these disparate tools hanging on hooks nailed into the walls. The tools cover a part of the floor, too. This is like…
City Landmarks – A-One Flower & More A-One Places, Old Delhi & Around Town
A-one. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Galli Chooriwallan, the street of bangle sellers. Mohalla Qabristan, the neighbourhood of the graveyard. Pahari Imli, the hill of the tamarind. Each of these names are requiems for lost worlds. Galli Chooriwallan…
City Landmark – Lost Banyan Tree, Connaught Place
You’ll be remembered. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some may think it is no big deal. That in this city of ruins, this is just another ruin. But this tree in Connaught Place (CP) was a friend to…
City Landmark – Pari Selfie Point, Mathura Road
A new landmark. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Is it a flapping of wings? Or are these the limbs of a friendly octopus? This metallic installation is the latest landmark of the capital, here on Mathura Road. A…
City Landmark – Oberoi Hotel Flyover, Central Delhi
Art of the street. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The friend’s the biggest enemy. The maxim is scrawled in black chalk on the wall of the Oberoi Hotel flyover, here in central Delhi’s Zakir Husain Marg (see photo)….
City Landmark – Mango Tree, Deer Park
The bench under a special tree. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is handsome, with a pleasant disposition, seeming to unite some of the best blessings of existence. It has lived here for many years, with very little…
City Landmark – Akhil Bharti, Galli Charkewalan
A lesser known bookstore. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The door is narrow, the place within is very small, but what an illustrious crowd— Jaiprakash Bharti, Devaram Bhamu, Hardarshan Sehgal, Jaishankar Prasad, and many many other writers. This…
City Landmark – The Book Mark, South Extension I
A survivor. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Let’s talk about Delhi’s extinct bookshops. The Bookworm in Connaught Place had a spiral staircase, that went up to the Capital’s best collection of books on cinema. The Fact & Fiction…
City Landmark – Tolstoy’s Statue, Janpath
On reading War and Peace. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] And what does he make of his country’s war against Ukraine? But Leo Tolstoy is remaining as silent as a statue. With arms crossed on his chest, the…
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