The Delhi Proustians – The Best English Translation, Scott Moncrieff or Lydia Davis Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - March 23, 2015March 23, 201510 Letters from Nagpur and Birmingham. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla is soon to restart the weekly meetings of The Delhi Proustians. The other day I received a mail from Ankit Kumar, a reader in Nagpur, Maharashtra. I’m sharing it with his permission. "I do not know whether it is appropriate to discuss Proust over e-mail but I had to write this. I came across your book Nobody Can Love You More while going through someone's blog. And while reading your book, I came across your blog, and while reading your blog, I came across Marcel Proust. It was my destiny. I finished your book in three sittings. I had to follow you to Proust. But the problem is that even if I really want to
City Season – Semal Tree, Daryaganj Police Station Nature by The Delhi Walla - March 21, 20154 The news of summer. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi’s brief winter ends in January. February is pleasingly cool in the city. March is always warm. But this year March continued to behave like February. Then one morning the giant semal tree outside the Daryaganj Police Station clothed itself with thick red flowers. That day it became warm in Delhi. A harbinger of summer, this blossoming tree in Daryaganj tried to soften the news of the impending arrival of hot dusty days by gently showering its red pulpy flowers on the ground below. Some of these flowers fell beside a bike. Some fell on the road; a few of them were crushed under the wheels of the passing cars. Two flowers fell
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Anurag Dixit, Ashram Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - March 21, 20154 The 40th death. [Text by Anurag Dixit; photo by Anjali Dixit] The Unseen He died Before that, he trembled And before that, he suffered He suffered Before that, he walked He walked and he travelled And before that, he explored He explored Before that he felt colours And before that, he saw colours He saw colours Before that, he composed colours And before that, he tuned colours He tuned colours Before that, he enjoyed And before, he got excited He was alive He lived He smiled He was an artist who died. Our Self-Written Obituaries invites people to write their obituary in 200 words. The idea is to share with the world how you will like to be remembered after you are gone. (May you live a long life, of course!) Please mail me your self-obit at mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com.
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Nishtha Gautam , Deshbandhu College Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - March 20, 2015March 20, 20151 The 39th death. [Text by Nishtha Gautam; photo by a French woman traveller] Nishtha Gautam died in a motor accident on the evening of 8 September. She was observing her weekly ritual of going to Agra, when her car rammed into a truck on Yamuna Expressway. This visit was going to be a special one since she was driving a gifts-laden car packed with meticulously packed boxes of Banoffee Pie and Blueberry Cheesecake from The Big Chill. It was her husband’s birthday the next day. Ms Gautam was also going to celebrate her 30th birthday after ten days. Ms Gautam was known for living her life not just on the edge, but also pushing the very edge ahead inch by inch. Her family,
Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Indian Poetry in English, The Toddy Shop & Elsewhere City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - March 19, 2015June 3, 20153 The new life of verse. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Fancy giving somebody 2 lakh rupees because you like their poetry? That’s exactly what happened this year at the Jaipur Literature Festival. The Delhi-based poet Arundhathi Subramaniam received the inaugural Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry for her collection, When God Is A Traveller. The annual prize will be sponsored by marketing professional Suhel Seth. “If Suhel Seth is giving away money for a poetry prize, then we’ve entered the mainstream,” says another Delhi-based poet-novelist-guitarist Jeet Thayil, only half-jokingly — he was on the jury. Poetry has a rich tradition in India. It was instrumental in earning the country its first (and only) Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded to Rabindranath Tagore in
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Zoya Singh, Lady Shri Ram College Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - March 19, 2015March 19, 20151 The 38th death. [Text by Zoya Singh; photo by Vijay Singh] Zoya Singh always thought that she didn't belong here. Even the words that she spoke carried in them some sense of oddness and misunderstanding that belonged to some other time, some other era, some place better. Ms Singh went missing a year ago after she ran away to find herself among the mountains. Her body was found swamped around a lake, in the very perfection of her being, with which she lived. Perhaps, she had found what she was looking for. Ms Singh grew up reading Plath and Poe, the two Ps that ran her life. She quoted Rousseau in school, and debated with Einstein while she was only seven. In her pastime,
Atget’s Corner – 731-735, Delhi Photos Delhi Pics by The Delhi Walla - March 18, 2015March 18, 20151 The visible city. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi is a voyeur’s paradise and The Delhi Walla also makes pictures. I take photos of people, streets, flowers, eateries, drawing rooms, tombs, landscapes, buses, colleges, Sufi shrines, trees, animals, autos, libraries, birds, courtyards, kitchens and old buildings. My archive of more than 25,000 photos showcases Delhi’s ongoing evolution. Each day five randomly picked pictures from this collection will be put up on the pages of this website. The series is named in the memory of French artist Eugène Atget (1857-1927), who, in the words of a biographer, was an “obsessed photographer determined to document every corner of Paris before it disappeared under the assault of modern improvements.” Here are Delhi photos numbered 731 to 735. 731. Hazrat Nizamuddin
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Pupps Roy, Kailash Colony Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - March 18, 2015March 18, 201511 The 37th death. [Text by Pupps Roy; photo by Unknown] Seize the day. Indeed, the phrase "carpe diem" was coined for Pupps Roy, a migrant who came to New Delhi with steely determination and went on to climb the pinnacle of its high society. Mr Roy made many friends, as well as many enemies in the capital’s exclusive circle of fashionable people. He was widely admired for effortlessly juggling his time between two married lovers (famous page-3 names by the way). However, when Mr Roy breathed his last, he was in the middle of making love to some other man. According to the anonymous person he was with, Mr Roy was moaning softly at the moment of his ejaculation from the world. Two
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Nammita Bhatia, Noida Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - March 17, 20151 The 36th death. [Text by Nammita Bhatia; photo by Sanskriti Mohta] Nammita (the ‘mm’ was her attempt at being different from all other Namitas out there) Bhatia, 52, finally died of heart failure during siesta yesterday, after dying a thousand deaths caused by boredom. At the time of death, Ms Bhatia was dreaming of being felicitated as a brilliant debutante novelist. However, it is suspected that she actually died of loving and wanting too much. Born by accident to bewildered parents on a cold December night (much unlike her warm April heart), she sleepwalked through life in cute rose-tinted glasses, constantly striving to rise above mediocrity (no mean feat). She bore astonishingly bright girls - her only achievements, which, too, she largely attributed
Netherfield Ball – Jashn-e-Rekhta, India International Centre City Parties by The Delhi Walla - March 16, 2015March 16, 20154 The party secrets. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One evening The Delhi Walla attended the inaugural ceremony of Jashn-e-Rekhta held in the Fountain Lawns of the India International Centre (IIC). The two-day Urdu literary festival was hosted by Rekhta Foundation (I have written about its fabulous poetry website here) in collaboration with the IIC. The sundown began with chauffer-driver cars queuing up in the portico to let loose their stockpile of Delhi’s smart set. One erect white-haired woman sashayed out holding a long slim cigarette; another invited notice with her gigantic pearl necklace. There were hardly any black-haired people save for the volunteers, politely guarding the front seats for the VIPs. Sighted on the first row -- Allahabad-based writer Shamsur Rahman Faruqi,