City Life – Pollution Postcard, 2023 Delhi
Prose and poem on the Delhi smog. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The mourning (sorry, morning!) sky is sandstorm yellow, so is the earth and everything between the sky and earth, though no storm is brewing. The distant…
City Life – Ramlila Actors, Ramlila Ground
Once in a year. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The crown gracing his head, the smooth folds of his dress–every inch the King Dashrath. But the Raja Dashrath sitting on this plain Jane plastic chair is also a…
City Life – Faces of a Far-Off War, Paharganj
On Israel and Palestine. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Everyone is smiling in these photos. A few are even grinning. All seem to be young. All are Israelis. The same carefree expressions are to be found on their…
City Hangout – Tracking the Pigeons, Chitli Qabar Chowk
Bird’s-eye view. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Suddenly, the house of lawyer Nilofar “advocate” starts moving. Nahi nahi, these are actually the dark ripples moving along the building’s walls that give that impression. The restless pigeons are flying…
City Life – Metro Dialogues, Blue Lines
Did you hear. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Shuttling on the Delhi Metro is incredibly visual. You see people in their most casual attitudes, completely unconscious of others, indulging in acts that are kabhi weird kabhi cute. Our…
City Nature – Tree Heroes, M-Block, Greater Kailash 2
Icons of a tree-lined road. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Rendered conscious by the camera, these three are standing stiffly under the long slant branch of a tree. Years ago, Dharamveer, Hasan, Azim, and a handful of others…
City Life – Bougainvillea Pavement, Chelmsford Road
Losses and gains. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The long drought has ended. The world is pink again, to an extent. This pavement section on a Chelmsford Road lane was among Delhi’s most beautiful spots due to a…
City Life – “Pandrah Agust” Independence Day, Old Delhi
The I-day. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] You are to be pitied if you live in Gurugram, or Ghaziabad, or Noida, or even in superposh Jorbagh. Because on Independence Day, the luckiest people in the country are those…
City Life – Infrastructure Workers, Sarai Kale Khan
Capital builders. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The airy space high up between the two gigantic plinths is crisscrossed into a maze of grids, the kind printed in a school student’s maths notebook. From a distance, these grids…
City Neighbourhood – Changing World, Haveli Azam Khan
Going with the wind, coming with the wind. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The stately sheesham door looked sufficiently venerable to be a tangible link to some unrecorded past. It is gone, replaced by a metal shutter. The…
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