City Moment – Portrait of a Marriage, Mandir Marg
The beautiful Delhi instant. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One sunny noon The Delhi Walla saw a bride and a groom at a temple in Mandir Marg, Central Delhi. The couple was in the temple’s lawn, along with…
City Reading – The Delhi Proustians – VI, Indian Coffee House
A la recherche du temps perdu. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Today is the sixth meeting of The Delhi Proustians, a club for Delhiwallas that discusses French novelist Marcel Proust. Every Sunday noon for an hour we read…
The Delhi Walla Books – Now in Japan
Delhi to Tokyo [By Mayank Austen Soofi] The four-volume The Delhi Walla series have become a constant fixture in Delhi’s bookstores. Being its author and photographer, I like to believe that they are considered as a serious attempt to interpret…
City Food – Gular Leaves, Around Town
The secret of the mutton. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] If you love mutton curry, you cannot ignore gular. The leaves of this tree are the food of goats. Gular, the common fig (Ficus carica) native to West…
Mission Delhi – Savitha Sastry, Greater Kailash I
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Wearing a flamenco skirt, she enters the practice room at her apartment in south Delhi’s Greater Kailash I, and breaks into the classical movements of…
City Reading – The Delhi Proustians – V, Indian Coffee House
A la recherche du temps perdu. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Today is the fifth meeting of The Delhi Proustians, a club for Delhiwallas that discusses French novelist Marcel Proust. Every Sunday noon for an hour we read…
City Special – Arundhati Roy in Bombay
The Delhi-based author on India’s richest house. [Photo by Uttam Ghosh] Is it a house or a home? A temple to the new India, or a warehouse for its ghosts? Ever since Antilla arrived on Altamount Road in Mumbai, exuding…
City Life – Home Sweet Home, Mathura Road
Inside the walls. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One cold evening The Delhi Walla met the 80-year-old Manikchand, a retired rag-picker. He stays alone. The entrance of his one-room shelter faces the busy Mathura Road. In a pinkish-red…
City Faith – Chehlum Procession, Matia Mahal
End of a mourning. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Today is chehlum, the ceremony commemorating the 40th day after the death anniversary of the Prophet Muhammed’s grandson Imam Husain Ibn Ali. Centuries ago, he and his 72 followers…
The Biographical Dictionary of Delhi – Homai Vyarawalla, b. Navsari, Gujarat, 1913-2012
The definitive directory of famous Delhiites. [Text by Mayank Austen Soofi; pictures shared by Alkazi Collection of Photography] Like most of today’s generation, you must have been introduced to her photographs in history textbooks. Homai Vyarawalla, 97, originally a Bombay…
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