City Home – Late Scholar Abdul Sattar’s Room, Pahari Imli
The room lives on. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is gone, lying buried in Dilli Gate cemetry, but his packed bookshelves are in their appointed places. His mattress and pillows, too. The angle the afternoon sunlight is…
City Home – A Fifth Floor Roof, Sukhdev Vihar
Seeing the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] If only you can sneak into this art gallery to visit the tapestry embroidered with a panorama of our city. At first, it looks merely a messy maze of roofs,…
City Home – On the Lane, Hazrat Nizamuddin East
Their temporary address. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Nizamuddin East is too posh. The dwellers include a nawab’s daughter, a former chief minister, another former chief minister’s politician son, a jet-setting film director, a top notch hotelier, a…
City Home – House for Four, Hazrat Nizamuddin East
Home sweet home. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The small cooking gas cylinder is limply hanging down the wall, as casually as a cotton gamcha from a wardrobe hook. A chequered gamcha is hung similarly, in fact. There’s…
City Home – Roommates in Ruin, Galli Chooriwallan
Roomies, a portrait. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] So dark, so musty. It’s like a cave. As the eyes adjust to the dimness, this mysterious world exudes even more mystery. The jagged walls—unpainted, bare— are of long-ago lakhori….
City Home – Irshad’s Residence, Near GB Pant Hospital
Home sweet home [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Here, the white cord of a mobile phone charger. There, a blue-rimmed handheld mirror. On a hook, two jackets. On the floor, a blanket. This room is an entire house,…
City Home – Saira Bano & Family, Gali Chandi Wali
Home sweet home [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] An entire household is contained in this room. This household contains a life that has largely disappeared. The second floor apartment in Old Delhi’s Gali Chandi Wali houses a family…
City Home – Fareed Mirza, Bazar Shah Abul Khair Marg
Old home glossary. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Suburb-like flats are taking over Old Delhi’s traditional makaan, or houses. Here’s a glossary of domestic spaces soon to be lost to legends. This afternoon, building material merchant Fareed Mirza…
Delhi Homes – Barsati, Around Town
The vanishing rain shelter. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is raining hard on the terrace of an 18th floor flat in Gurgaon’s Golf Course Road. Monsoon is giddily beating down on this multitude of high-rises. Yet, it…
City Home – Ruined Bungalow, Somewhere in Delhi
A deserted home. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The metal gate is splotched with red dots of rust. The pane-less windows on the first floor stare out like open wounds. Cobwebs are hanging from window grills. It is…
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