GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.Delhi's wretched heat has lost its zing.[Text by Sadia Dehlvi, picture by Mayank Austen Soofi]I must be growing old for I don’t look forward to dining out any more and since summer is not party time, the season comes a huge relief. Thankfully, there are no really happening events that one must be seen at while attempting to grab the photographers’ eye so that the illusion of belonging to the world of the bold and beautiful stays afloat. Frankly, it is just true friends who bother to venture out to see one another in the blazing heat. Good time to discern between “friends” and

Delhi’s legendary bookstore is to die, aged 31. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Bookworm, a 31-year-old landmark at Connaught Place’s B Block that has been visited by booklovers like Satyajit Ray, is closing down. Blame it on the declining business caused by the rise of bookstore chains and cheaply priced pirated books in the city. Desperate to roll down the shutters as soon as possible, this legendary shop that always insisted on selling books at their list prices is now clearing its stock of around 20,000 books by offering up to 70 per cent discount. “By monsoon, it should be all over,” says Mr. Anil Arora, the owner. Those ready to mourn the disappearance of independently owned bookshops must refrain. The

GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.Friday night in an über-fashionable club.[the author, wishing to remain anonymous, describes himself as "an amateur clubber of some experience"; picture for representational purpose is by Mayank Austen Soofi]The views expressed are of the author's alone.Delhi is a city that never, in my opinion, fails to live up to its image in the international eye. A city that, for all those who care to talk of it at all is always mysterious and unfailingly disappointing in all that it promises. This was borne out yet again at an über-fashionable club that I went to. Now, notwithstanding my suspicions on the quality of experience that gay

GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.My journey into the mysteries of Delhi.[By Rudradeep Chakrabarti; picture by Mayank Austen Soofi]I stand on the banks of the Yamuna at Nigambodh Ghat. I reflect on my exploration of the City of Djinns – Making of a Theatre, a play I directed in the summer of last year. It was reverse osmosis; neither the journey of Bahadur Shah Zafar from Delhi to Rangoon nor Mirza Ghalib's travel to Kolkata. Mine was the journey of a young man from Kolkata's theatre hub, Academy of Fine Arts, to Delhi's Mandi House. In 2002, I enrolled at the National School of Drama.Growing up with Tagore, Satyajit Ray

There goes the jazz tune. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi; the above picture, taken in the South Extenson market, is by Pablo Bartholomew] Is it true that Arundhati Roy live in a barsati in Green Park? One late morning a friend called up saying that she has spotted Arundhati Roy in a café there. She said, “Mayank, I always think of you when I see Arundhati Roy." But Arundhati Roy has also been rumored to be living somewhere in Chanakya Puri. A few others have told me that she actually has a writer’s studio near Khan Market with windows opening out to the tombs of Lodhi Garden. I have walked for hours in all these three places, along with my paperback of

GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.All the news that’s not fit to print.[Text by Mayank Austen Soofi; picture by Erik Kurzweil]At around 4 in the afternoon of April 26th, Erik Kurzweil, counsellor in the German embassy, witnessed an incredible sight in the first-floor guestroom of his Malcha Marg bungalow--a huge bird sitting on the bed and flapping it giant wings. A terrified Erik closed the door immediately and screamed for Christina, his maid, who scrambled up the stairs wondering if she has forgotten to dust some godforsaken corner ("But I never scream at her," Erik says). She too saw the bird, she too screamed. The security guard was summoned. He

GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.In the shrine of Delhi’s naked sufi.[Text and picture by Mayank Austen Soofi]The sufi shrine of Hazrat Sarmad Shaheed in Old Delhi, shaded by a large Neem tree and lying opposite the eastern gate of Jama Masjid, is a bubble of serenity in the otherwise chaotic district. The noisy biryani sellers and quarrelsome Bangladeshi beggars in the alley outside are unable to disturb the quiet that lurks inside the shrine.Cross the entrance and you are in a chamber that has been distilled of all the turbulence of the worldly world. Here you can be as calm as Buddha and as cozy as when you were

GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.Excursion into the British-built district.[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]You should never walk in Gole Market after dark. They say that peepal trees are the natural habitat of ghosts and many peepal trees are to be found here. Lining the avenues. Guarding the parks. Leaning over the temple walls. Blocking the view of Nirula's. Everywhere. Oddly, residents do not seem to be scared of these trees. I saw an old lady sleeping under its afternoon shade. A Punjab Kesari reader reclined against its trunk. And a young man peeing on it. The coreAt ground zero of Gole Market, the constituency of Chief Minister Sheila