City Life – Tikona Park, Near Oberoi Hotel Flyover
Changing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The concrete island beside the traffic light has been dug up, and the raw earth is now full of new trees, so young that their trunks look like mere stalks. Maybe,…
City Obituary – Shabana Banu, Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti
A life, passed. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] No sign of her things—neither of her bundle, that served as a pillow at night, nor of her hand fan. She had been living on this spot of the pavement…
City Life – Handwritten Sentiments, Around Town
Or lives in chits and scraps. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] “If we lose this, we lose everything”— and so concludes the romantic note, handwritten by a person to their beloved at the back of a Khan Market…
City Life – Urmila & Jeetu, Patel Nagar
Portrait of a marriage. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It’s noon, and they are directly exposed to the heatwave. She is standing barefoot on a mound of dug-up earth. He is in the ditch below. They are talking…
City Life – Sabeena & Afzal, Sarai Kale Khan
Love story. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Both of them are fond of chai. And when they are having chai together, they drink it from the same glass. “We feel good this way,” he says. “Because we like…
City Life – Family Closet, Sadar Bazar
A souvenir of memories. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Loved ones go, the objects of their daily life stay. And some trace of the departed, tidbit of a particular memory perhaps, is evoked by those objects. Like in…
City Life – Three Labourers, Pragati Maidan
Builders of a new city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The air is laden with dust. The temperature is so high that the body seems to be on a slow roast. In such a setting, a new world…
City Life – Handmade Helmets, Bazar Sirki Walan
Their protective headgear. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] They say the world is the size of each man’s head. For daily-wage labourers in Old Delhi’s Bazar Sirki Walan, it might be truer of their headgear. Almost every man…
City Obituary – Raju Pandey, Amrit Book Company
Life of a bookseller. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] He was made of air, and hovered about like a djinn. At least, those were the vibes he exuded. For he materialised by your side just as you felt…
City Life – Vaccination Camps, Jama Masjid
The mosque in the Covid-era. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The five tents are in red. A flap of cloth sewed on one of them says: Covid 19 Vaccination Center. The tents stand in Jama Masjid, as a…
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