The beautiful Delhi instant.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

One afternoon The Delhi Walla attended the funeral of a rat in the Central Delhi neighbourhood of Jorbagh.

“Our dog attacked him,” the woman told me. She lives in a bungalow close to the Lodhi Gardens.

Placing the rat at the center of her fenced lawn, the woman said, “We use humane traps. My husband always releases the rats in the Lodhi Gardens. But I’m lazy and I release them in our lawn. Today I did exactly that and my dog pounced on the poor creature. It was over in a second.”

As she placed a white flower on the rat, I asked, “What was his name?”

The woman shrugged. She placed a few more white flowers on the rat. Only a part of the tail was visible.

The woman then walked over to a flowering shrub, plucked a yellow flower and placed it respectfully on the rat. It was a beautiful moment.

The last rite

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