The taste of home. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Kunal Gupta’s poha stall is a rarity. This spicy puffed-rice snack is a beloved tea-time staple at home, but it hardly qualifies as Delhi’s street food. The Delhi Walla…
The visible city. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi is a voyeur’s paradise and The Delhi Walla also makes pictures. I take photos of people, streets, flowers, eateries, drawing rooms, tombs, landscapes, buses, colleges, Sufi shrines, trees, animals, autos, libraries, birds,…
Life of a bookstore matriarch. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] For some affluent Delhiites, posh Khan Market is like a second home. For a very, very few, Khan Market is home. Uma Marwah, who lived in house number…
A poetic world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Have you noticed how some places evoke different feelings at night and in the day? Take Nehru Place. Nobody would go to that business district for aesthetic reasons. The concrete…
Style in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] She lives in a world of handwoven saris. Even the blinds of her drawing room are, well, saris (see second last picture at the bottom). One afternoon, The Delhi…
We love you Aunt Jane. [The Delhi Walla special; all photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The decorously subversive chronicler of England’s drawing rooms died on 18 July, 1817. In Sufism, the death anniversary is celebrated, not mourned. So, as we…
The definitive directory of famous Delhiites. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] At 72, the maker of Hindustani classical music lost interest in the world. Poet Amir Khusro, the 14th century courtier to seven kings, was in mourning after…
Poetry in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] She writes in verse though her field is ‘criminal matters’. Shehla Nawab works as a lawyer and lives as a poet. The Delhi Walla meets her one afternoon at…
Tomb without the dome. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] What if Humayun’s Tomb didn’t have a dome — just the stone plinth on which it stands? To see what it would look like, just head to Najaf Khan’s…
The passing of an age. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is sitting against a mostly-empty bookshelf. The upper reaches of the walls are lined with framed portraits of Hindi writers. This dimly-lit musty space seems to have…
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