Inside the walls. One cold evening The Delhi Walla entered the home of a person who appeared to be living alone in this city. The house looked to Lodhi Road. It had no walls. The person was sleeping on a mattress spread under the shade of a...
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The god of small sellers. For this hawker of mouth fresheners, her world is a tiny portion of the pavement in the capital’s Prabhu Market near central Delhi’s Sewa Nagar railway crossing. The property was passed down to 62-year-old Shanti from her husband, a vegetable vendor, who...
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The Old Delhi society. The guests arrived at the Mahavir Vatika ground in Old Delhi’s Daryaganj in cabs, in auto-rickshaws, and in buses. Some came from a distance of ten miles, from Gaffar Manzil, from Seelampur, and from Ghaziabad. All the relatives of both families had been...
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Home is where the mart is. For some affluent Delhiites, posh Khan Market is like a second home. For a very, very few, Khan Market is home. But this will soon end. Consider Ravi Gulati. In his 40s, he was born in Khan Market. His first-floor house...
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Sleeping with the traffic. About midnight. A few men and a few dogs are sleeping on the concrete divider. “The (traffic) fumes prevent the insects from coming on to the middle of the road,” says Javed Khan. The Delhi Walla meets him on the School Lane flyover...
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Find it in the city. One exceptionally hot afternoon, The Delhi Walla was walking down an empty street in Lajpat Nagar. No one dared venture into the heat. The sweat formed on my head, trickled down under my T-shirt, and soaked my jeans. I walked and walked...
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Feeding the soul. Nosering, Sweety, Kaajal and Sudama are sitting close to a Mother Dairy booth in Vasant Kunj, New Delhi. It’s 3pm, and Sonya Ghosh is expected. An associate professor of English at the University of Delhi, Ms Ghosh arrives daily in a Maruti van carrying...
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Inside the walls. One cold evening The Delhi Walla met the 80-year-old Manikchand, a retired rag-picker. He stays alone. The entrance of his one-room shelter faces the busy Mathura Road. In a pinkish-red dressing-gown, Mr Manikchand was lying on the floor. His bed was made up of...
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Life in Delhi’s prettiest neighborhood. Hauz Khas Village has become a ‘hang out’. Artist types still come but the ageless rich have infiltrated in large numbers. These people look successful, cocky and aggressively happy. They have great bodies and they are plushly underdressed; they speak accented English...
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The spring of life. He raises his arms, lowers his head, stays still, takes a deep breathe and jumps from the roof and… SPLASH! He crash lands into the cold dark brown water. Before he can resurface, another boy dives in, followed by another and another and...
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