Letter from Gurgaon - On The Delhi Walla Books

Letter from Gurgaon – On The Delhi Walla Books

Best-selling novelist introduces The Delhi Walla books. [By Advaita Kala] When my family moved to Delhi in the early nineties, I was not in the least pleased. With two years to go before I finished school, I had made up…

Mission Delhi - Ankit Verma, South Extension-I

Mission Delhi – Ankit Verma, South Extension-I

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sitting beside the commuters, he suddenly gets up, sits down again and says, “I want to stand out among the normal people. I want…

City Food - Kebab Stalls, Urdu Bazaar

City Food – Kebab Stalls, Urdu Bazaar

Delhi’s cheapest kebab destination. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] In pre-Partition Delhi, when the Walled City was home to educated and wealthy Muslims (who later went to Pakistan), Urdu Bazaar was a street lined with Urdu-language bookstores. By…

Memo from Connaught Place - The Games Mood is Getting Better

Memo from Connaught Place – The Games Mood is Getting Better

Delhi is getting optimistic. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] The mood about the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth games is changing. The media stories about missed deadlines, bad hygiene, shoddy renovation is growing paler. In the backdrop of a dazzling…

City Style - The Classy Delhiwalla, Bulbuli Khana

City Style – The Classy Delhiwalla, Bulbuli Khana

Searching for the stylish. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla saw this young man in the Walled City’s Bulbuli Khana mohalla. He was standing alone in a shaded alley. Goats were scampering across the lane. Flies…

City Hangout - India Habitat Center, Lodhi Road

City Hangout – India Habitat Center, Lodhi Road

Delhi’s swish space. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Little must have Joseph Allen Stein, the American architect of India Habitat Center (IHC), imagined that the six restaurants, four galleries, one auditorium, amphitheatre and a sprawling atrium in his…

Photo Essay – Shera, Delhi Commonwealth Games

Photo Essay – Shera, Delhi Commonwealth Games

The making of the mascot. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Shera, the tiger, is the mascot of 2010 Commonwealth Games being hosted by Delhi. In this city of Very Important Persons, he has become the most important person,…

Memo from Humayun’s Tomb – Two Aussies in Delhi

Memo from Humayun’s Tomb – Two Aussies in Delhi

Delhi is too hard on itself. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Stop beating your chest. “Delhi is not filthy,” said Jenny Stevenson, an Australian visitor to the city. The Delhi Walla met Ms Stevenson at the ticket counter…

Photo Essay – Indian Coffee House, Mohan Singh Place

Photo Essay – Indian Coffee House, Mohan Singh Place

Evocation of a vanished time. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Indian Coffee House (circa 1957) expresses its extraordinary romantic atmosphere in its run down furniture. The café is a tribute to the dignity of old times when there…

City Diary - The Delhi Walla Books and Some Unlucky Delhiwallas

City Diary – The Delhi Walla Books and Some Unlucky Delhiwallas

It’s a beautiful and ugly city. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Life changes in a week. On September 21, 2010, The Delhi Walla was walking on the Lodhi Road pavement with Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the…