GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.A new backpacker ghetto in town.[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]A Tibetan refugee camp since the 1960s, Majnu ka Teela is emerging as the new Paharganj.This is odd. Unlike Delhi's original backpacker paradise, it flaunts no Hebrew graffiti or German bakeries. Here wrinkled momolas, and not Nigerian hash addicts, kill time sitting on pavement benches. Chummy uncles drink butter tea, not masala chai. CD shacks play Phurbu T Namgyal, not Ravi Shankar. While rosy-cheeked boys, fresh from Lhasa, smoke Marlboros in street corners.MT, as locals refer to it, used to be a popular dormitory neighborhood for Tibetan travellers. These were refugees settled in India

GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.A Delhi girl finds a better life in the middle-eastern metropolis.[Text by Manika Dhama; she writes in Myriad Musings and More; picture of the author by Mayank Austen Soofi]I always knew that Delhi and I were going to have a long-distance relationship some day. It didn’t matter that I’d lived, studied and worked there for almost 12 years. That was the longest I’d stayed in any city. But I left the city last year in September. No, it wasn’t about Delhi and me. We were getting along just fine. It was just time to move on and I was more than ready to.When I finally

A budding writer from Lahore visits the city of his beloved author.[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]The ignorant Delhi wallas often view visiting Pakistanis as ISI agents or trouble-makers. Mr. Raza Rumi, a native of Lahore, is neither. He has no beard, no moustache. He never frowns, he smiles (actually, he smiles a lot). He has a sleek laptop, no Kalashnikov. Yet he set the city on fire. As Pakistan's celebrated blogger, he was invited by Jamia Millia Islamia University to speak on a seminar on the Urdu novelist Qurratulain Hyder. Mr. Rumi came, read, and well…conquered. Everyone loved his take on the late writer's enduring popularity in Pakistan. 'Passionate', 'heartfelt', and 'excellent' were some of the words used

GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.The iconic face of Indian TV sits down with The Delhi Walla.Calcutta-born Siddhatha Basu is widely recognized as father of television quiz shows in South Asia. Managing Director of Synergy Adlabs, he has produced TV classics like Quiz Time and Kaun Banega Crorepati. Mr. Basu lived in Delhi all these years but recently shifted to Bombay. The Delhi Walla badgered him on his life, wife, career, and just why (oh why) he ditched our Delhi.[This is the final of the three-part interview series Mr. Basu gave to Mayank Austen Soofi. In the first he compared lives in Bombay and Delhi. In the second he

GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.A retiring refuge in this noisy city.[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]There are better islands in Delhi than your bedroom for a peaceful afternoon nap. Like the sufi shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya.Reach around 2 pm. The prayer of Zuhr is over and Maghrib is about four hours away. No unnecessary crowd at this time. No awestruck visitors. No Lonely Planet tourists. No qawwals. No music. No noise. Only the devout. Here is your chance to be yourself.No one disturbs anyone (if you are in grief and weeping, you are left alone). It is tempting to immediately lie down and cushion yourself into the

Arundhati Roy demands Indian citizenship for the exiled Bangladeshi author. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi is not Dhaka. It is not even Kolkata. Ms. Taslima Nasreen, the Bangladeshi author who has been virtually put under house arrest by the Indian government, somewhere in Delhi, wants to go back home to Kolkata. She does not and is not made to feel at home in this city. But the government is eager to ship her abroad. Ms. Nasreen wonders why this country of one billion can’t add one more to its numbers. What innocence(!) She is too combustible for this country. She writes insulting things about Islam. She writes graphic details about her sex life. She writes all this rather badly and

GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.The sanctity of the ancient quarter is at risk.[Text by Sadia Dehlvi; picture by Mayank Austen Soofi]There is a proposal to construct a swanky mall and a multilayered underground parking fifteen meters away from the steps of Jama Masjid. To create this four-basement structure the ground will have to be dug at least eighty feet. Digging of this scale is known to cause severe stress to surrounding buildings. Jama Masjid is built on a rocky hilltop called Bhojla Pahari. The plan is a nightmare. It brings traumatic memories of the Babri Masjid demolition that was a direct outcome of Hindu extremism. If the proposed underground

GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.Your guide to Delhi's signature district.[Text and picture by Mayank Austen Soofi]Sonu Nigam, not Daler Mehndi. Health soups, not Tandoori Chicken. Neighborhood stores, not flashy malls. Is Punjabi Bagh really Punjabi by nature? Instead of being boisterous, this upper-middle class residential district is quite quiet. The avenues hum with the gentle purr of slow-moving DTC buses. Whilst red-cheeked Octavias and Opel Astras rush past leaving behind slight ripples that flow through beauty parlours and grocery stalls and palatial houses lining both sides of the road. Nothing else disturbs the stillness of the sleepy bylanes but, ah, the bungalows. Goethe once described architecture as frozen music.

GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.Introducing the blog Lahore Nama.[Text and imaging by Mayank Austen Soofi]I visited Lahore for the first time in 2006 and found it filthy, smoggy, and very third-world. Like Delhi. Obviously I loved it. I sensed more similarities: Punjabi gaalis, Mughal-era forts, colonial-era monuments, old-city bazaars, leafy districts, and broad avenues. And yes, Delhi has Lahori Gate and Lahore has Dilli Gate. But this sort of sameness is an illusion. Let’s not forget that Lahore is a Pakistani city and Delhi is Indian. We two are separated by past, present, and passports. More than 60 years have passed since the creation of our two nations. 60