A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Never befriend a foreign correspondent. They always leave. Take Ellen Barry, the South Asia bureau chief of The New York Times. She arrived in our city four years ago and is now preparing to leave for London. The Delhi Walla reaches her Jor Bagh home one afternoon just on time, as she is beginning to discard the books she doesn’t plan to bring along to her new posting. Standing in front of a wall-length bookshelf in the drawing room, Ms Barry explains that her library lacks some of her most beloved books--she often ends up gifting friends the books she loves. Still, I snoop around her collection and spot a fair number of

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] His empire at Mira Singh Farm, on the outskirts of Delhi, teems with Polish chickens and Scottish bantams. He also rules over a large population of goats, including Petunia, who was given to him by Pradip Krishen, the author of Trees of Delhi. One afternoon, The Delhi Walla enters the library of Scotland-born William Dalrymple, author of exalted books such as City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan and White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India. And let me make a confession: as a Delhiwalla, I came here with no other ambition than to personally touch the first edition of City of Djinns,

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Can you dream of touching with your own hand Ghalib’s handwritten poem? Well, just visit author Rakhshanda Jalil’s private library. One freezing evening, Ms Jalil unfolds this priceless object on her writing table. The Delhi Walla is at her study. The small room is filled with hundreds of books in Urdu — Ms Jalil has not only authored several volumes of fiction and non-fiction, but has also translated many great works of Urdu into English. Nervously holding the delicate sheet of paper on which the great Ghalib wrote with his own hand, Ms Jalil tells me that this piece of paper had passed down to her as a family heirloom. It actually belonged to

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Love books? Then envy Aanchal Malhotra. Her parents run Bahrisons Booksellers, India’s most successful independently owned bookstore. One morning The Delhi Walla enters Ms Malhotra’s book-lined home in Safdarjang Enclave. It is so different from her bookstore--so crowded with writers and yet so serene. The drawing room has hundreds of books, so does her bedroom. A paperback Keats is on the bedside table. Ms Malhotra is a tad too close to this poet. One of his most famous lines--A thing of beauty is a joy forever--is tattooed on her arm. This sensitive woman also has a thing for a tragic Russian poet whose collection of poems contains within its pages a handwritten note

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The books are everywhere, including under her bed. One afternoon The Delhi Walla visits Namita Gokhale at her home in South Delhi’s poetically named neighborhood of Safdarjung Development Area. “I don’t know how many books I have,” says Ms Gokhale. She is sitting on her drawing room sofa, possessively holding on to the first copy of Things to Leave Behind, her new novel that has just been sent by her publishers. Ms Gokhale must be one of the world’s luckiest hoarders of books. She has a job that every booklover will die to have—she is a co-director of Jaipur Literature Festival, that winter-season carnival in which every ambitious writer plots to get an invite. They

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One morning The Delhi Walla enters the library of the city’s great Persian scholar S.M. Yunus Jaffery at his home in the congested Walled City neighborhood of Ganj Mir Khan. Mr Jaffery is not to be seen. He died a week ago due to complications arising out of a delicate surgery. He was 86. Mr Jaffery’s home--a private world of courtyards, terraces and balconies--shelters the families of his various nephews. His books and papers are confined to three rooms. The late scholar had retired as the head of the Persian department at Delhi University’s Zakir Husain College and spent his long years immersed in reading and writing. Though he never married, he remained

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is the stuff dreams are made on. Bhaskar Ghose has read the entire Shakespeare—all the plays, all the sonnets. He has even read Cymbeline (who reads Cymbeline?)! One afternoon The Delhi Walla visits the retired bureaucrat’s apartment in Mayur Vihar I. His wife, classical dancer Alarmel Valli, is in Chennai but the empty house is crowded with writers and poets (one room is filled with trashy mystery thrillers... oh no, I'd sworn not to mention it!) Mr Ghose’s study looks very neat and the complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica looks untouched. But look closely at the book racks and you shall see only a madness in the method. The room has probably a

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] There are bookshelves everywhere, even outside, just beside the door. One afternoon, The Delhi Walla steps inside Dayanita Singh’s studio. The internationally acclaimed author-photographer’s pad in south Delhi’s Vasant Vihar is a maze of book-filled rooms. Even the kitchen shelves are stacked with the printed word. A few racks are filled with nothing but petite black Moleskine diaries. Ms Singh, however, has a relationship with only two dozen books. That beloved stack stands discreetly on a dark-wood shelf. Walking towards this special bundle, she picks up Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and opens it randomly. The slim paperback, we discover, is already torn into two parts. Why can’t she get a

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake, wrote poet Wallace Stevens. And if the lake is too far, step into the poetic world of Steven’s ardent devotee Barbara Del Mercato. One evening The Delhi Walla enters Ms Del Mercato’s home in Venice to see her private collection of books, most of which is composed of poetry. She shares her apartment with her school-going daughter who is accomplished in guitar and fencing. Ms Del Mercato’s architect partner lately moved to south Italy to reinvent himself as a cook. The book-filled home is perhaps the only apartment in this dreamy city where you don’t feel the urge to look out at the beautiful

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The weekend edition of The International New York Times is lying in one corner. It has a story on the ancient Jewish district of Venice. The full-page feature, timed to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the world’s first ghetto, shows a portrait of Riccardo Calimani, a historian of Jewish life. In the newspaper, this stately looking man—himself a Jew—is seen seated in his study. It is the most picturesque room of his house, a palace that overlooks the Grand Canal. One morning The Delhi Walla enters this same study at Palazzo Fontana. Mr Calimani is surrounded by thousands of books, dozens of family photographs, and some soft toys. There is also a