The mint of history. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] In a fashion, India’s dense history of invasion, destruction, reconstruction, colonization, re-colonization is immortalised in its coins. This occurred to The Delhi Walla one Sunday morning in Daryaganj’s weekly…
Delhi in Paris. [Photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia warns that Delhi’s India Gate should not be confused with the Gateway of India in Bombay. But during a trip to Paris, The Delhi Walla confused a…
Delhi’s red light district. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla has just finished writing a non-fiction book on GB Road, the city’s red light district. The hardbound edition of Nobody Can Love You More will be…
Simple but complicated. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is startling to discover that the capital’s most delicious yellow dal is to be found at Karim’s, the Mughlai eatery famous for its non-vegetarian biryanis, kebabs and kormas. The…
A la recherche du temps perdu. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla regrets to inform that the 29th meeting of The Delhi Proustians, a club for Delhiwallas that discusses French novelist Marcel Proust, could not take place as scheduled….
Finding lost time. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Here you get old hand-wound Swiss watches for cheap. Javed Husain Khan’s roadside ‘counter’ stands under a babool tree, at the border of central Delhi’s Nizamuddin Basti and Nizamuddin West….
A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One evening, The Delhi Walla knocks on the door of Nandini Mehta. In her sixties, Mrs Mehta lives with her husband Dalip in a bungalow in Vasant Vihar, a south…
Sleeping with the traffic. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] About midnight. A few men and a few dogs are sleeping on the concrete divider. “The (traffic) fumes prevent the insects from coming on to the middle of the…
The beautiful Delhi instant. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One evening The Delhi Walla was on the pedestrian bridge built across the Ghazipur Road in east Delhi. It was twilight, the hour of commuters. Below, the road swarmed…
A la recherche du temps perdu. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Today is the 28th meeting of The Delhi Proustians, a club for Delhiwallas that discusses French novelist Marcel Proust. Every Monday evening for an hour we read…
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