City Obituary – Retired Justice Leila Seth is No More, Noida, Near Delhi General by The Delhi Walla - May 6, 2017May 8, 20172 Passing of a heroine. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] India's first woman High Court Chief Justice Leila Seth died of cardiac arrest on 6 May 2017, aged 86. She was also Delhi High Court’s first woman judge. She was also author Vikram Seth’s mother and was the model behind Lata Mehra, the heroine of Mr Seth’s novel A Suitable Boy. The Delhi Walla would often spot her in the book launches but she curtailed her public appearances following a stroke in the latter part of 2016. Despite her increasingly frail health, Mrs Seth was seen at Aruna Chakravarti's book launch in India International Center in November last year. It was to be her final public sighting (see last picture below). In
Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Samia Mehraj’s Poem ‘The Runaway Girl’, Maidan Garhi City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - May 6, 20171 Poetry in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] A paperback of Aga Shahid Ali’s poetry is lying on her living room mattress. The small table has an old copy of The New Yorker. The shelf is stacked with authors such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Marcel Proust, and Mirza Waheed. And then she wants the world to believe she is a qualified biotechnology engineer. But that is nothing more to her than a graduation certificate. The Delhi Walla is meeting Samia Mehraj this afternoon in her capacity as a poet. Ms Mehraj, who recently received the coveted Young India fellowship, is looking forward to spend a year in Ashoka University, Haryana, where she will study liberal arts. In her 20s, she lives alone in her