City Food – The Morally Appalling Carrot Cake, The Big Chill Cakery, Khan Market Food by The Delhi Walla - November 30, 2016November 30, 20163 Disgracefully delicious. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is morally appalling. The carrot cake at The Big Chill Cakery bakery in Delhi's Khan Market has to be the most politically incorrect dish in this city of vast disparities. It is too rich. The creamy layer is as thick as the smog that hangs over this miserable metropolis. The very sight looks disgusting. And it is so delicious. A single slice of this cake is as filling as the half kilogram of Gulab Jamuns at Nathu Sweets—it is that gigantic. Even if you don't count the cream (which is impossible of course), this is still Titanic. The crumbly part by itself is worth a night-long debauchery. The cream, however, is like a narcotic. It launches
Mission Delhi – Sooraj Mal, IFFCO Chowk Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - November 28, 2016November 30, 20163 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] His mustache is so large and dense and it twirls so royally like that of a Maharaja that he perfectly fits the stereotype of a hotel doorman. It turns out he indeed is a hotel doorman. No, actually he was a restaurant doorman until a few months ago. “I was a doorman in Pind Balluchi,” says Sooraj Mal. The Delhi Walla meets him in a corridor in IFFCO Chowk, a station on the Delhi Metro’s yellow line. People are hurriedly going about their businesses; some are rushing towards the platform, others are heading to the exit; a young woman is talking on her mobile phone. Everybody seems to have an
City Moment – The Overworked Music Men of the Yellow Line, Rajiv Chowk Metro Station Delhi Metro Moments by The Delhi Walla - November 27, 2016November 27, 20160 The memorable instant. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] They were apparitions in golden dhotis and pink jackets. One late night The Delhi Walla saw members of the Kirti music band. They were sitting inside a Metro rail coach. The train, running northwards, was somewhere between HUDA City Centre and Samaypur Badli on the yellow line. Some of these musicians were sleeping. They looked tired. One of them yawned (see photo 6 below). Perhaps they were returning after an exhausting performance in a wedding procession—this is, after all, the cold season of arranged marriages. The train stopped at a station. A man stepped in with his briefcase. Dressed in black pants and white shirt, he looked light years away from the world of these
City Landmark – Victor Bros, Connaught Place Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - November 25, 2016November 27, 20161 A quieter world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Don't cry for poor dear CP (Connaught Place). The colonial-era commercial district, that world of stately white columns and louvred windows, is now a 21st century muddle of uniformly similar restaurants, pubs and cafés. Even so, CP still contains some old landmarks that give us a hint of its early character. Victor Bros is one of those very few survivors. Founded in 1972, it is not as old as CP, but it does retain the flavour of Old CP, that mythical Shangri-La of dignity and manners where everyone must have picked at their pakoris with forks. Bathed in a dim orange light, this Kashmiri handicraft store in E-block is a sprawling hall covered
City Hangout – Leisure Valley Park, Sector 29, Gurgaon Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - November 23, 2016November 23, 20161 A bubble in the bubble. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The land of Gurgaon, just across Delhi's southern border, is a world of dreams. Sky-kissing towers are clustered together in such a way that the place becomes New York to all those of us who are doomed to haplessly fumble through life without an American visa. One smoggy afternoon The Delhi Walla discovers a most magical place in Gurgaon--a public park so intimate that you could settle down there. The modestly-named Leisure Valley contains a life totally at variance with the rhythms of the fast, furious, business-like Gurgaon. Here the world seems to be in a long sabbatical. The scenes are serene: a middle-aged man and woman holding hands silently on
City Monument – Moth Ki Masjid, Near Uday Park Monuments by The Delhi Walla - November 20, 2016November 20, 20162 Our neighbourhood ruin. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] As a mosque, it is dead. Prayers are not offered here. As a monument, Moth ki Masjid is full of life. The stone mosque takes its name from moth (beans), which is said to have produced a harvest big enough to finance its construction. Commissioned by Miyan Bhoiya, a minister in the court of Sikandar Lodi (1488-1517), the masjid has domes, turrets, and staircases. The gateway is carved with Quranic inscriptions and ornamental outlines. The domed chattris still possess a couple of original blue tiles. The courtyard is shaded with leafy trees. The masjid shares architectural characteristics with prominent historical mosques in Delhi such as Quila-e-Kohna in Purana Quila and Jamali-Kamali in Mehrauli. However,
Atget’s Corner – 976-980, Delhi Photos Delhi Pics by The Delhi Walla - November 19, 20161 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 1,00,000 photos showcases Delhi’s ongoing evolution. Five randomly picked pictures from this collection are regularly 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 976 to 980. 976. Matia Mahal 977. KG Marg 978.
City Season – Finding Poets, etc, in the World’s Most Poisonous Smog, Around Delhi Nature by The Delhi Walla - November 17, 2016November 17, 20161 Life in the world's most polluted city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] “Fashion in dystopia,” a friend commented while showing The Delhi Walla a photo on her phone of a young woman wearing a mask, the kind one sees in Hollywood movies when the bad guys lob a smoke bomb in a hostage situation and the good guys smartly put on their masks and save everyone before viewers can draw a tense breath. Well, someone lobbed a smoke bomb—or a smog bomb, or a dust bomb, or… whatchamacallit—at the National Capital Region during a recent weekend, and viewers are still waiting for the good guys to rush in. The bad guys—whoever “they” are—got us by the lungs. We are the hostages.
City Travel – Into the Homeland of Arundhati Roy’s ‘The God of Small Things’, Kerala Travel by The Delhi Walla - November 13, 2016November 14, 20162 Small things of utmost happiness. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] July in Ayemenem is not a hot, brooding month. The days are not long, though they continue to be humid. The river does not seem to shrink at all. Red bananas cannot be seen ripening either, and no jackfruit is bursting. Dissolute bluebottles fail to hum vacuously in the non-fruity air. These lines, mangled, are from the opening passage of The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy’s first novel. These are also the first lines The Delhi Walla wrote during a July expedition to Ayemenem, the village in Kerala that frames the novel’s backdrop. Almost 20 years after the publication of The God Of Small Things, Penguin Books in the UK announced
City Monument – Anglo-Arabic School, Near New Delhi Railway Station Monuments by The Delhi Walla - November 12, 2016November 12, 20160 Far from the world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is a secret world--exquisite without being ostentatious. The Mughal-era Anglo-Arabic School consists of a cluster of early-18th century buildings. That includes a Sufi shrine, a tomb and a mosque. The only drawback is that it is Delhi's oldest surviving educational institution (since 1696). So you cannot enter the compound unless you are a student or a teacher. One afternoon, however, The Delhi Walla manages to sneak inside the school. It is like entering into an abandoned city. The classrooms are locked. The corridors are empty. There is no one in the gardens. It turns out to be a holiday. All is silence. Unknown tombs are lying everywhere. An unlit gallery leads