City Walk – Chanakyapuri, Central Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - October 28, 20240 A surreal stroll. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] No stars to be seen but the moon up there is lingering like a tiny white hole at the top of the greyish black sky. While down here, the deserted pave is bordered by unwieldly trees which cast upon the ground, wherever they are lit by street-lamps, the Japanese stencil of their shadows. Sudden gusts of cooling breeze is also rippling along from moment to moment. The pavement borders a wide road, presently empty. An evening stroll in Chanakyapuri makes for one of Delhi’s most sublime walks. The premium locality is the address of embassies and foreign diplomats. It is just 8 O’clock in the evening, and the place is as lively
City Neighbourhood – Kucha Faulad Khan, Old Delhi Regions by The Delhi Walla - October 27, 20240 A street in the Walled City. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Kucha traditionally implies a lane of dwellers sharing the same occupation. Faulad means steel, or strong. So Old Delhi’s Kucha Faulad Khan neighbourhood can be explained as a strong man’s street. As for Faulad Khan the man, let’s pester the street’s shopkeepers. The genial Mahesh administers Asia General Store. “Faulad Khan...,” he murmurs, deep in thought. He remains thoughtful for some more moments, and then smiles, shrugging. “Well, it has always been called by this name.” Mahesh doesn’t live in Faulad Khan but his shop has been here for 75 years. It was set up by his father, the late Nand Lal, who used to run a vegetable stall on the
City Food – Om Sai Ram Allahabadi Tea & Coffee Stall, Mehrauli Food by The Delhi Walla - October 25, 20240 Chai by the Qutub. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Founded 12 years ago, this has to be Delhi’s most picturesque roadside chai stall. It shares its wide-screen panorama with the centuries-old tower of Qutub Minar. See left photo. After completing the evening’s routine chai delivery to his regulars, who work in nearby offices, here in Mehrauli, Manikchand returns to his stall. Sitting down on the chair, beside the tea kettle, the milk pan, and a plastic jar filled with crispy crumbly mathhis, he tells the history of his monument. Not the Qutub Minar, but his beloved Om Sai Ram Allahabadi Tea & Coffee Stall (no coffee served though). To Manikchand, the most important aspect of his establishment is the story of
City Monument – Graves of Mehrauli, South Delhi Monuments by The Delhi Walla - October 24, 20240 Old stones. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Old Delhi is towards the north of the capital and is pretty old. Mehrauli is towards the southern end and is far older. It is a graveyard of various epochs of Delhi’s overlong history, containing material fragments from the Tomars to the Lodhis to the British. Mehrauli is also a land of very many graves. These graves are of royals as well as of fakeerrs, and also, famously, of people from the transgender community—a cemetery takes its name from their colloquial identity. Mehrauli’s most historic grave is of Emperor Iltutmish, who fathered Razia Sultan, the one who went on to become Delhi’s first female ruler. You need a ticket to have an audience with
City Landmark – Skywalk Corner, Supreme Court Metro Station Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - October 23, 20241 A corner off the chaos. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] In a megapolis of millions, here’s a table for two. It is actually a bench, and this afternoon two citizens sitting on it are sharing a meal from the same plate. The next bench has a citizen in kurta-pajama lying sprawled along its length, sleeping. The setting could be a public park with grass, flowers and trees. Nothing of that sort. It is all concrete. This infrastructure utility came up six years ago in central Delhi, and is part of a network of pedestrian overpasses, called sky walk, connecting the Supreme Court metro station to scores of tree-lined avenues that span out of the area. For many citizens, this corner
City Food – Daulat ki Chaat 2024 Edition, Old Delhi Food by The Delhi Walla - October 22, 20240 The winter season street dessert. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is looking like fistfuls of soft ice scooped out of a melting glacier. And it is embedded with freshly plucked dark red roses. Mubarak. The season’s first sighting of the frothy-white daulat ki chaat took place this Friday, close to the remnants of the Walled City’s stone walls, near Ansari Road, outside the Hindi Park. This wintertime dessert is made of milk, cream and dew. Each daulat ki chaat vendor has his own version of the making of the dish, but the core of each story is structured around the same plot. Undiluted buffalo milk is whisked with cream (which too is obtained from buffalo milk) under the
City Poem – Delhi Pollution, Around Town City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - October 21, 2024October 21, 20240 An ode to this time of the year. [Poem by Mukul, photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Blue sky, fresh air. But the panorama is coated in dust—see photo. The smoggy Delhi scene was actually snapped this weekend. The extreme pollution that strangles the capital at this time of the year is threatening to return. That’s not the reason why Mukul left the city last week for his other home in the clearer air of Dehradun. The young writer attributes it to other reasons. Whatever, he wrote a poem at his “Jamnapaar” Dilli residence as his response to “a resigned, helpless rage… in a city suffocated, gasping for breath….“ He agrees to share it with us. How Tender Is This Wrath of
City Hangout – Cotton Market, Old Delhi Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - October 20, 2024October 21, 20240 Unique bazar. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] This is easy. The logic behind the name is no rocket science. Old Delhi’s Cotton Market owns its two words because it is a market that stocks cotton-made stuff, like quilts and mattresses and—per shop no. 15--“all kinds of shaneel, Jaipuri bedsheet, razai, gadda, pillow, coirform, mattress, quilt sheet, etc).” The place is spectacular in terms of sights. Parts of it offer a long sprawling view of the Jama Masjid, a perspective of the centuries-old monument not seen from anywhere else. The unassuming market is actually a stretch connecting Urdu Bazar to Chandni Chowk. The shops also sell carpets and suitcases. All of these cram up both sides of the narrow lane, and in
City Landmark – Jeevan Bharti Building in October Sunset, Connaught Place Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - October 18, 20241 Rembrandt's Dilli. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] That’s a Charles Correa. The Connaught Place edifice, Jeevan Bharti, is gigantic, and the front facade looks like a dizzyingly complex network of grids. The late architect designed the capital’s many other noteworthy complexes as well--Tara Apartments, Crafts Museum, and the British Council. But this evening the CP building has transmogrified into something profounder, almost supernatural. The cause is the extraordinary pre-winter sunset that faithfully returns to Delhi skies at this time of the year, just before the annual arrival of the extreme smog. It is half past five and the mid-October sun is dipping behind the Correa creation. The building is partly glowing in gold, though most of the panorama (including the rush-hour
City Season – Floss-Silk Trees, Around Town Nature by The Delhi Walla - October 17, 2024October 17, 20240 Pink tour. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It must be 5 o’clock, for a translucent gold light has again filled up the vast Lodhi Garden. The evening sun must be setting behind the centuries-old Sheesh Gumbad. The debut stars of the moment, however, are two trees standing by a walking track. Barely noticeable during the rest of the year, the trees are dressed in pink. The five-petaled flowers of floss-silk have started to show up across the city. Today we take these trees for granted, but when India became free in 1947, the big wide Delhi did not have even one floss-silk. A native of South America, the tree is also known as Mexican Silk Cotton. It was brought to