Every writer’s problem. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The drawing-room steel rack has hijacked his mind. The Delhi Walla is at the home of Ronald Vivian (RV) Smith, the city’s longtime chronicler, who is the author of many…
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is known as Kuttey Walla Baba, the man with the dog. A brown dog is always seen around him. Other stray dogs, too, are…
[Digging out old stories from The Delhi Walla] A foreign art critic visiting Delhi’s Connaught Place may be forgiven for thinking its red-splattered corridors are a form of abstract expression. Although the dirty white pillars of the colonial-era arcade were…
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,…
Somebody’s grave. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The tomb is covered with a white silk cloth. It’s torn. The paint on the headstone has partially peeled off to expose the bricks within. One afternoon The Delhi Walla comes…
The symbol of Delhi. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] The DL number plates given to cars, auto rickshaws and bikes registered in Delhi frame the view of the city’s roads and streets. These two alphabets arranged together speak…
In the world’s most polluted city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Walking in the Lodhi Gardens in central Delhi is always beautiful. This winter, particularly, do look out for that misty haze of PM 2.5 enveloped around the…
The 2015 accounts. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. The Delhi Walla was a respectable run-up. The website was viewed about 820,000 times in 2015. If it were an exhibit…
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,…
The dream palace of a doctor. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] An elderly man is patiently looking out into the street through a curtained glass window. He is dressed in a three-piece suit, complete with a tie. The…
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