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Month: August 2011

The Delhi Walla Books – Interview by Yuva Magazine

by The Delhi Walla - 11

[By Yuva Magazine] Despite being bestsellers, most newspapers and magazines ignored The Delhi Walla books. Corrupt as India media is, the editors and book beat reporters are always plugging books of friends or of authors who can afford the services of public relation firms. So, if you only read The Times of India, or The Indian Express, or Hindustan Times, or Mail Today, or India Today, or Outlook, you would have never heard of The Delhi Walla books. But then there are exceptions, such as the Bombay-based Yuva magazine that carried my two-page interview on its August 2011 issue. (Please buy a copy!) Yuva editor Sharon Fernandes talked to me. Here's the full story: One can never predict the journey of the

City Style – The Classy Delhiwalla, Nizamuddin Basti

by The Delhi Walla - 4

Searching for the stylish. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla saw this man on Mirza Ghalib street in Nizamuddin Basti, a 14th century village famous for the shrine of sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. The man was wearing a black karakul cap, black sherwani, white pajama, mustard green socks and brown leather shoes. His glasses were rectangular, his hair was long and his beard was wiry. There was no one dressed like him. The man’s sherwani, with its big black round buttons, reached almost to his shoes. The breast pocket had two pens. A hint of white flashed from behind the sherwani’s collar; must be the kurta underneath. It was a warm humid night and the man would

Mission Delhi – PM Sahay, Connaught Place

by The Delhi Walla - 20

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Standing against a pillar, his head lowered, he slips the pink duck-faced puppets into his hands and waves weakly. The passers-by don’t notice. The Delhi Walla meets PM Sahay one evening in B Block, Inner Circle, Connaught Place, Delhi’s Colonial-era commercial district. A pavement hawker, he is 74. “At this age shouldn’t you stay home?” I ask him. “I can’t.” Mr Sahay is a saritorialist’s man. His ironed bluish-white full-sleeved shirt is tucked into his pleated light-brown trouser that has a black leather belt. His brown shoes are polished. With his white hair and brown-rimmed glasses, he looks like a retired bureaucrat. Mr Sahay walks towards the next block. Taking

City Memo – In Which Anna Gives it Those Ones

by The Delhi Walla - 12

The marketing of brand Anna Hazare. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] In an apartment in Ghaziabad, Delhi’s satellite town, lives a family that regularly watches Zee TV’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L’il Champs, a singing talent show for children. On 12 August 2011, the mother, father and their 12-year-old daughter were pleasantly surprised to see Anna Hazare, the 74-year-old man who has shaken India, as the show’s special guest. Each member of the family has their own reason to adore Mr Hazare. “His vision goes beyond the Lokpal,” says Tribhuwan Narayana Singh, an engineer. His daughter, Paridhi, says, “He’s old and yet energetic.” Her mother, Payal, a designer, says, “I first heard of Anna in April when he was

City Memo – Arundhati Roy on Anna Hazare’s Siege of Delhi

by The Delhi Walla - 19

We're not Anna. [Photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] If what we're watching on TV is indeed a revolution, then it has to be one of the more embarrassing and unintelligible ones of recent times. For now, whatever questions you may have about the Jan Lokpal Bill, here are the answers you're likely to get: tick the box — (a) Vande Mataram (b) Bharat Mata ki Jai (c) India is Anna, Anna is India (d) Jai Hind. For completely different reasons, and in completely different ways, you could say that the Maoists and the Jan Lokpal Bill have one thing in common — they both seek the overthrow of the Indian State. One working from the bottom up, by means of an armed struggle,

City Monument – Restoring Red Fort, Old Delhi

by The Delhi Walla - 3

Recreating a lost time. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Can it be done? “It’s like drawing the picture of how a dead person looked by putting together stray pieces of his unconnected skeleton,” says Anisha Shekhar Mukherji, conservation architect and author of The Red Fort of Shahjahanabad. The 17th century Mughal fairyland of pavilions, canals and gardens—a Unesco World Heritage site—is getting a makeover. “This is Red Fort’s first major conservation since independence in 1947,” says K.K. Muhammed, superintending archaeologist, Delhi circle, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). The only other Mughal monument to have seen conservation on such an ambitious scale is Humayun’s Tomb garden in Delhi, by the Aga Khan Foundation in 2003. For visitors, Red Fort is an anti-climax.

Hauz Khas Series – A House in the Village, Chapter 2

by The Delhi Walla - 2

Life in Delhi’s prettiest neighbourhood. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] My house looks to the Hauz Khas monument. This morning I got to know a family that lives inside that monument. I met Pappu and Usha on the Hauz Khas Village road, a tree-lined stretch that connects the neighbourhood to Aurobindo Marg. The husband and wife are daily wage laborers hired by a contractor to work at Feroze Shah Tughlak’s tomb, the restoration of which is going on for more than a year. That’s why, Pappu said, they have been allowed to set up a temporary home inside the monument. Pappu and Usha call it ‘gumbad’, the Urdu for dome. The husband is dark, slender with a light mustache; the wife

City Culture – B-boying, Connaught Place Subway

by The Delhi Walla - 8

Hips and hops. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Twisting the hip. Spinning on the floor. Standing on the head. Freezing into a pose. Legs leaping up. Suddenly, the entire body falling flat with a thud. "Yo, yo." One late monsoon evening The Delhi Walla saw a gang of boys who were B-boying at the underground pedestrian subway in Connaught Place, Delhi’s Colonial-era commercial district. Home to beggars and dope addicts, the subway connecting Wimpy’s to KFC was transformed into a setting straight out of New York, the metropolis where B-boying originated. A part of the hip-hop genre, it’s a street dance that evolved among the New York City’s Afro-American and Latino boys in the 1970s. According to urbandictionary.com, the ‘b’ in the

Mission Delhi – A. Husain, Green Park Market

by The Delhi Walla - 4

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] His eyebrows are threaded and his nails are manicured. He is carrying a large brown handbag. “I’m not an Indian,” A. Husain says, dressed in a pink T-shirt and blue shorts. “But I grew up in Delhi intellectually and emotionally, and my life’s most important relationship was formed with a Sikh man from Punjab.” The Delhi Walla meets Mr Husain, 27, at Café Coffee Day, Green Park Market. A PhD student at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Mr Husian has lived through the changes that have partially transformed the lives of gay men in the city. A native of Mauritius, he moved to the Capital seven years ago. Mr

City Life – Bird Flying, Matia Mahal

by The Delhi Walla - 3

The traditional pastime. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] They fly away but always come back. Mateen Qureshi, 26, the owner of Shireen Bhawan sweetshop in Matia Mahal bazaar, has the largest collection of pigeons in Old Delhi. The Delhi Walla is on his roof, on the fourth floor of his house. The roof has half a dozen giant birdcages, called jaalis. It is evening. The mullah in a nearby mosque has just finished crying out the azaan, calling the faithful to prayer. Mr Qureshi will first finish his chore. “It’s time for the daily rounding (sic),” he says. A boy on the neighboring rooftop is flying a kite. Mr Qureshi opens the jaalis one by one and the birds, instead of flying

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