City Life – Refugee Status, Majnu ka Tila
Live from Lhasa. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The way home may not be the way back. Tenzin Kunchok, 34, has never set foot in her homeland. “Maybe someday,” says Ms Kunchok, who co-runs a travel agency in…
City Life – Muhammed Sabir’s Dengue, Hazrat Nizamuddin East
A face in the fever. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The thinkable has happened. Muhammed Sabir, too, has got dengue. Mr Sabir is one of the thousands of Delhiwallas who have been hit by this fever in the…
City Life – The Descent of Men, Turkman Gate
The Delhi reality. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One morning The Delhi Walla saw a grey-haired man asleep on the pavement just outside the Mughal-era monument of Turkman Gate. The man was covered with a sack. Flies buzzed…
City Life – Love Letters, Scrap Dealer’s Home, Old Delhi
Life in mails. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One afternoon, in a raddiwala’s (scrap dealer’s) home in Old Delhi, The Delhi Walla discovered a polythene bag filled with letters and picture postcards. The envelopes had the addresses of…
City Life – Rain Basera, Chandni Chowk
The home for the homeless [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] An abode that comes alive when birds return to their nests—this is the poetic imagery that the term rain basera evokes in an online dictionary. To the prosaic,…
City Life – Glorified Golf Carts, Around Town
The New York Times on Delhi autos [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It’s like Edward Said’s Orientalism, part two, and it tickles. Until now they were only after our pet snakes and harem women. Now they are also…
City Life – Delhi Lovers, Lodhi Gardens
The geography of love. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some say that love’s a little boy. Some say it’s a bird. Some say it makes the world go round — so mused a long dead poet. In Delhi,…
City Life – Living with Cats, Old Delhi
Kitty’s own city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Mehvash Sattar lives with her scholar father and his hundreds of rare Urdu books; the 25-year-old is a master’s student. She has many friends. The closest is the homeless Laali,…
Letter from Montreal – Unpartitioned Things, Delhi & Lahore
Old objects in a post-partition world. [Text and photos by Aanchal Malhotra] When I was young I never thought about the past; it barely ever weighed down on me. In fact, back then it was all about the now. The…
City Life – Photographer Vendors, India Gate
An unusual tribe. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It’s a lovely afternoon. India Gate gleams even in New Delhi’s winter haze. A boy with a hint of a stubble is lying lazily under a tree’s scented shade. His…
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