City Neighbourhood – Brijmohan Marg, Old Delhi Life Regions Walks by The Delhi Walla - June 9, 20240 A lane in the Walled City. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Buildings evoke eras. With its arched doorway and carved balcony, a mansion of lakhori bricks in Gali Chooriwallan instantly transports the gazer to the late Mughal times. Some streets away within the same historic quarter, in Ganj Meer Khan, a multi-storey apartment complex resembles the contemporary aesthetics of the distant suburbia. While towards the eastern walls of the Walled City, here at Brijmohan Marg, these contemplative houses are indicative of… just which era? These buildings are neither as ornamental as havelis, nor as toneless as flats. Take this mansion of modern-day bricks. It doesn’t look old, it also doesn’t look new. The hulky facade is partitioned into equal halves
City Neighbourhood – Pahari Imli, Old Delhi Travel Walks by The Delhi Walla - May 19, 20240 The tamarind hill. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The love song from our grandfathers’ time is streaming out from a window atop the grocery of “Shadab ki dukan.” Up there is Bhai Majid’s “embroidery ka karkhana.” The hard-at-work tailors--Salimuddin, Arif, Shahbuddin and Jawed--are notorious for playing Muhammed Rafi’s romantic ditties all through the day, making this corner of Pahari Imli a shrine to the legendary singer. Elsewhere, the serpentine walkways of Pahari Imli, the tamarind hill, occasionally punctuates with brief flights of staircases, chipped and broken in places. Long before Old Delhi was set up by Emperor Shahjahan, this land was likely a tree-covered hill. One of those trees must have been the tamarind tree that gave its name to
City Neighbourhood- Gali Manihar Wali, Old Delhi Regions Walks by The Delhi Walla - May 13, 20240 A Walled City Lane. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] When the Walled City nostalgists muse about its early days, they refer to that long-ago time as “badshahi ke daur mein.” Indeed, it was “during the era of emperors” that almost all the Walled City galliyan and kuche acquired their names. These specific nouns richly tell of the past but rarely of the present, for the world has drastically altered in the historic quarter. The story goes that “badshahi ke daur mein” Gali Choori Walan used to be the street of choori traders. Today, not a single bangle store is here. Same ended up being the fateful kismet of a Choori Walan side-lane. Gali Manihar Wali used to house
City Walk – Rajpur Road & Environs, Civil Lines Walks by The Delhi Walla - May 11, 2024May 13, 20240 Into serene avenues. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The gate is locked. The tree-speckled compound is strewn with dry crackling leaves. The lone man in the stately porch, a guard maybe, makes no answer. Peering over the rusted spokes of the gate it is clear that the bungalow is uninhabited. The arched portals gape forlorn (see photo). This is a surreal scene on Rajpur Road, in north Delhi’s Civil Lines. You ought to consider a long leisurely walk in the precincts primarily to study the bungalow’s dilapidated dignity—not by encroaching into the private space, but by strolling along the pave that goes past the relic. More distractions exist elsewhere in the vicinity, including many other bungalows, excellently preserved. Then there are
City Walk – Gail Choori Walan, Old Delhi Hangouts Walks by The Delhi Walla - May 5, 20240 Street of the bangle folks [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Did you know that Snow White and the seven dwarves isn’t just a fairy tale? True, those eight folks used to live in Old Delhi, here in Gali Choori Walan, the street of bangle wale. The proof is this aged mansion. Count yourself. One, two, three… eight doors! Count the balconies above—eight. Extraordinarily elaborate cobwebs are woven along these doors. Their translucent strands seem to have been spun out of invisible air. Passing by the doors, bookbinding manufacturer Iftikhar Ahmad (see photo) says that all the houses in this building of eight doors are empty, except for one. He points to the only door that is not locked. Himself a
City Neighbourhood – Pratap Street, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - April 14, 2024April 14, 20240 Backstreet world. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Deserted alleys, defaced walls, cobwebby windows, rusting doors, loopy cables, dead rats and unexpected dead-ends. Strolling through certain Old Delhi passageways is like being abandoned inside some spooky documentary on municipal surrealism: Pratap Street, behind Golcha Cinema building in Daryaganj, is even more surreal. This afternoon—the day of Eid—the lane is completely empty. Totally silent. All shop fronts shuttered. In some time, a handful of citizens emerge, including a man in white kurta-pajamas (see photo). Property dealer Suhail explains that most residents had stayed awake the whole night celebrating the festival, and after offering the Eid prayers in the morning, they are at home, resting, probably asleep. Nevertheless, the walls on both sides of the
City Walk – Gali Gudaryan, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - April 6, 20240 A welcoming street. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some parts so silent and deserted, others full of bustle and sounds. Most of Gali Gudaryan is like a baggy wide megapolis where people come from all corners of the world for a living. Take this cramped envelope-making workshop. Squatting on the floor, six Walled City men are on the job (see photo), and all are natives of other streets. Irshad and Naushad are from Gali Dakotan; Faizan is from Mohalla Qabristan; Danish is from Turkman Gate Bazar; Amir is from LNJP colony—technically it lies outside the Walled City’s vanished city walls, but for all practical purposes it is a part of the historic quarter; and Majid is from Phatak Teliyan. Littered with paper
City Walk – An Alley, Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti Walks by The Delhi Walla - April 2, 20240 Midnight’s street. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The groceries, the veggie stalls, the lazy dogs, the cats, the rats, and us people. Everything’s ordinary along the street. Until it isn’t. The dull spell is broken on spotting a side-lane, intoxicated in a moody mix of light and shadow, concrete and colours. It is midnight in central Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti. The 14th century enclave is crammed with historical as well as contemporary curiosities. The shrines, the tombs, the bakeries, and the perfumeries. This short narrow lane is not one of those. It is just another passage in the neighbourhood, flanked by doorways on one side and a bunch of water pipes on the other. The pièce de résistance is the short
City Walk – Haveli Azam Khan, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - March 31, 20240 A Walled City street [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The door’s tatty curtain was to hide the once-affluent family’s wretched poverty, its threadbare predicament instead exposed its decline. Yashpal’s iconic short story Purdah immediately comes to mind on gazing at this purdah, here in Old Delhi’s Haveli Azam Khan street. The purdah is actually looking ok, the giveaway is the derelict doorway on which it hangs. The arched portal is made of long-ago lakhori, its damaged portions patched up with modern bricks, the blue paint severely discoloured. Haveli Azam Khan is said to have been the site of the haveli of a Mughal-era noble called Azam Khan. Nobody today remembers the haveli. A new world has emerged sphinx-like from
City Walk – Gali Mazar Wali, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - March 19, 2024March 19, 20240 A Walled City street [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The name promises a grave. And there is indeed a grave. Somebody’s mazar flanks the entrance of Gali Mazar Wali, here in Kalan Mahal locality. A mazar often—but not always—tends to be the tomb of a peer, a sufi mystic. In fact, a street elsewhere in the old city is named Gali Peerji Wali (featured recently on The Delhi Walla pages) But that peer’s identity is lost to history, so is his mazar. Over here, while the mazar of Gali Mazar Wali physically exists, its legends too have receded into unremembered territory. Nobody seems to know just who lies buried under the grave. The grave nevertheless cannot be missed. Its size is substantial,