City Hangout – Winter Light, Deer Park
Season’s passage. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The sunbeams spill apart as soon as they crash on the tree leaves. The dispersed bits of beams then drizzle down through the dense foliage, and fall on the dusty lane,…
City Hangout – Little Amphitheatre, DLF CuberHub, Gurgaon
A passage in the Walled City. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Not that the coronavirus has been forgotten but we citizens have started to re-mingle. And old places to mingle are again desirable. One feels homesick for those…
City Hangout – F Block, Connaught Place
The CP spirit. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The benches are stained with bird droppings. The muddy ground behind is littered with rat holes. The neem tree isn’t particularly shady. And yet, this place gives you a shat-pratishat…
City Hangout – Art District, Mandi House
A new-look much-loved zone. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Here you are, sitting on the steps, in easy intimacy with green grass and smoggy sky. Submerged in solitary thoughts. Or, perhaps arguing with a friend whether Godard really…
City Hangout – The Book Hub, Batla House
Shop of used books [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The tiny basement room is crammed with just too many writers. A perfect place for bookworms to burrow into the delicious smells of musty well-thumbed pages. The Book Hub…
City Hangout – Pond-Side Trees, Redeveloped Central Vista
First day in the new Central Vista. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] These don’t look like happy trees. Sad and despairing, they in fact remind one of Ophelia, the grief-stricken heroine in Shakespeare’s Hamlet who dies by drowning….
City Hangout – Underpass, Redeveloped Central Vista
First day in the new Central Vista. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Gentleman in a white mundu, pulled up to his waist, like Shah Rulh Khan’s lungi in the movie Chennai Express. The hat on his head is…
City Hangout – The Lawns, Redeveloped Central Vista
First day in the new Central Vista. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The grass is thick, green and humid. The air is steamy with late afternoon heat. The lawns fall between Man Singh Road and Janpath Road: trees…
City Hangout – Public Park, Greater Kailash 2
A lesser known oasis. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some poet wrote that a true garden is simply made of lights. If so, then this park in Greater Kailash 2 has to be Delhi’s truest garden, at least…
City Hangout – The Mid-August Sun, Defence Colony Flyover
An evening to memorialise. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The people who commanded the stage on 15 August, 1947, seem so far away in time and history — almost like myths. While in contrast this red disk, our…
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