A tale of two cities. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This is just like the Old Quarter of Shahjahanabad. This one has many churches; that one has many mosques. Both are rich in pigeons. The Delhi Walla is in Venice. The Italian town has the same sort of narrow and self-contained streets that you find in Old Delhi, the ones which curve at soft angles and show new vistas on each turn. But there are a few differences between these two cities. In Old Delhi, we take pride in our masculine culture of spitting out saliva in public; we have also succeeded in establishing an irreverent attitude towards the bourgeois concepts of cleanliness and manners. Venice is not a radical place

The painful history. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It was raining. The Delhi Walla was in Nepal. I was being driven to Nagarkot, a village few miles outside Kathmandu that stands on a cliff and offers panoramic views of snowy Himalayan peaks. The car went up the hills that were carved into rice fields. Women, only women, were working in these paddies. Nepal felt magical in the heavy monsoon shower. Rain-soaked village children rushed down the steep curves of the road, screaming and laughing. At one place we came across half a dozen women huddled under a large red umbrella. From inside the car, they looked as real as a water painting. Next, we passed by a Buddhist funeral procession. The

The Nepal diary. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The devotees were sitting on the stone stairs in groups of families and friends -- some were talking to each other, others were quiet. They were looking down at the Bagmati, which was rushing down in gentle fury. Naked boys were swimming in the sacred river. A dead body was being prepared for cremation. While the evening sun was casting its golden rays on the pagoda-like spire of the Pashupatinath Temple. Here Shiv is worshipped as Pashupati, the lord of the beasts. The Delhi Walla was in Kathmandu. The Nepal capital is unlike Delhi. It has many ancient temples, and only two mosques. There is hardly any garbage on the streets. The day before I

Like a painting. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] If French novelist Marcel Proust had lived in India, he would have lived in Calcutta. The city is like a faded watercolor painting. The Delhi Walla visited it for a week. Unlike Delhi, the old houses in Calcutta still survive. The green shuttered windows of crumbling yellow mansions preserve a genteel elegance of literary conversations and afternoon naps. I visited a retired woman in Charu Market whose modern-day flat was steeped in the same ambiance. Hardbound works of Rabindranath Tagore were stacked under her bed. DVDs of Satyajit Ray's films were stored in a drawer - next to her plasma screen TV. A tanpura was kept beside her dressing table. The woman made

The Delhi Walla in Bombay. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla spent the final week of 2012 in Bombay. I had Bombay Masala sandwich and marzipan carrot cake at Leopold Café, hot chocolate at Starbucks, pomfret tikka at Mahesh Lunch Home, and masala tea at Kala Ghoda cafe. One evening crossing Flora Fountain, I pretended to look as absorbed as any Bombayite on his way to catch the evening local from Churchgate (but I could sense the scam was uncovered and the bumpkin from the interiors revealed). Earlier that day at the Search Word bookstore in Causeway, Colaba, I purchased the poetry collections of Fernando Pessoa and Paul Celan. In Juhu, I walked on Chowpatty beach, browsed at the bookstore

The Delhi Walla in the French capital. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Just as The Delhi Walla started to feel Parisian during his trip to Paris, it was time to return to Delhi. Pari(s), merci and au revoir. See you soon. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

The Delhi Walla in the French capital. [By Jonas Moses Lustiger and Mayank Austen Soofi] A labyrinth of cobbled paths and mossy tombs, it is neither a Christian cemetery, nor a Muslim graveyard even though Christians, Muslims and Jews lie buried here. It is not even exclusively French; there are graves of Turkish, Armenian, Arab and Chinese migrants who made Paris their home. More than a cemetery, Père Lachaise seems to be a monument to the secular France. It witnessed the massacre that culminated the world’s first socialist revolution in 1871 known as Commune de Paris. Spread over 100 acres, the largest cemetery in Paris also reflects the violence that France went through the 20th century. Besides having memorials to the casualties of the First

The Delhi Walla in the French capital. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It was raining. The Delhi Walla was in Illiers-Combray, a small town south of Paris that is believed to be the setting of some of the most memorable passages in the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, a novel by Marcel Proust considered to be the greatest monument to French literature. Carrying Swann's Way--the first volume--in my hand, I walked in Combray's vacant streets and gardens. The stream was crowded with black ducks. The alleys smelled of wet grass and wood. Cows mooed on the mossy grounds. The black and grey steeple of the church of Saint-Jacques followed me wherever I went. The town has a school named

The Delhi Walla in the French capital. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The trees of Delhi are unwieldy. The trees of Paris look more civilised. They are the gentlefolk in evening dress – courteous, healthy, symmetrical, and lovable. They pursue perfection. They seem to care only about the tender things in life. If you stand under these trees, you half-expect to hear them talking of Balzac and Stendhal and Ghalib. The shaded paths underneath, too, are so dignified and so so beautiful, that it is a challenge to be moved. Too much prettiness perhaps numbs the mind. La Trees de Paris 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.