City Moment – Prayer for the Poet, Ghalib’s Tomb Moments by The Delhi Walla - March 5, 2013March 5, 20131 The beautiful Delhi instant. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is later afternoon. The Delhi Walla is in the tomb of poet Mirza Ghalib. It is in Central Delhi’s Nizamuddin Basti, which is home to the dargah of Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. Until a few years ago, the tomb was visible from the adjacent street that teems with pilgrims, flower sellers, beggars and goats. It was restored in 2009 by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in partnership with Archaeological Survey of India and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Before the restoration, the boundary wall was not as high. Cats clambered down from the surrounding butcheries to snooze beside the poet’s tomb… but I see a cat(!) She is sleeping. Otherwise, the
City Sighting – Arundhati Roy, India Islamic Centre General by The Delhi Walla - March 4, 2013March 4, 20133 The leather woman. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One evening The Delhi Walla sighted his most beloved Delhiite – author Arundhati Roy. She was in a black leather jacket and black Levi jeans. Ms Roy was at the India Islamic Center, Lodhi Road. She was to speak on Spontaneous Protests and Complicit Silences. The hall was filled with a variety of faces – old, young, bearded, clean-shaven, brown, white. It was warm inside. Ms Roy took off her jacket revealing a white embroidered shirt underneath. The author of The God of Small Things spoke for more than an hour. Her talk was peppered with the following: Sri Sri Sri Sri Sri Ambedker Indonesia Gulag Monty Python Mao Different Imagination Hyderabad Denounce (She said it was a Stalinist term and
The Statesman Review – On Nobody Can Love You More The Delhi Walla books by The Delhi Walla - March 3, 2013March 3, 20130 Life in a red light district. [By Mita Ghose] Mita Ghose discussed Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi’s Red Light District, a book by The Delhi Walla in The Statesman daily. Click here to read it on the newspaper’s website, or see below. CAPTURED in black and white, it is a world of strange contradictions: cut-outs of a sage and a deity preside over shelves crowded with cosmetics and condoms; sunlight brings a whiff of the outdoors into a darkened room, only to paint prison-bar stripes on its floor. These snapshots by blogger and writer Mayank Austen Soofi offer haunting glimpses of a world that lies mere minutes from the New Delhi railway station. But few, other than prospective clients, venture
City Style – The Classy Delhiwalla, Sadar Bazar Style by The Delhi Walla - March 1, 2013March 1, 20134 Searching for the stylish. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla saw this young man on a street corner in Sadar Bazar. His black topi is embroidered with gold threads and festooned with colored sequins. His maroon shirt has black stripes running along the sleeves. His black waist coat appears to be of leather. His neck is shielded from the season’s cold wind by a black woolen scarf. His yellow trousers are held tight by a white polka dot belt. His sandals are brown. His eyes are underlined with kaajal. There is no one dressed like him. In Delhi, as in other Indian towns and cities, the race among the boys is to look like the new Bollywood actor