Book of The Times – Michiko Kakutani’s Review of ‘Ruined by Reading’, by Mayank Austen Soofi General by The Delhi Walla - July 27, 2017July 28, 20174 The definitive Delhi novel. [Review by Michiko Kakutani] Ruined by Reading, Mayank Austen Soofi's affecting first novel, begins as a sort of diary entries of a lonely book lover. What novels to buy today? Where to find a lover? What to do in the evening? Can I read the entire Proust? Should I really buy a Khaled Hosseni? Will I again *** this morning? While such oddly unfocused questions may sound banal and crude, they provide the narrative beginning of a novel that turns out to be as strange as it is powerful, a novel that is Baldwinian in its ambitious tackling of sexuality, loneliness and big-city life, but self-absorbed to the point of narcissism. A blogger who grew up in Delhi, India,
City Food – Kunal Gupta’s Poha Stall, Lakshmi Nagar Food by The Delhi Walla - July 27, 20170 The taste of home. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Kunal Gupta’s poha stall is a rarity. This spicy puffed-rice snack is a beloved tea-time staple at home, but it hardly qualifies as Delhi’s street food. The Delhi Walla is both surprised and thrilled to spot the stall in east Delhi’s Lakshmi Nagar. The poha is piled up on top of a boiler. Mr Gupta, who earlier worked as a shop assistant in a garments showroom, opened the stall three years ago. He learned to make poha from his mother. In fact, it was her idea to sell this dish and not the usual street food such as momos or chhole-kulche — for “poha is something you don’t find in Delhi, so people
Atget’s Corner – 1041-1045, Delhi Photos Delhi Pics by The Delhi Walla - July 26, 20170 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 1041 to 1045. 1041. Mon Cher Laurent, Nobody
City Obituary – Uma Marwah of Khan Market’s Faqir Chand & Sons Bookshop is No More General by The Delhi Walla - July 23, 2017July 23, 20170 Life of a bookstore matriarch. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] For some affluent Delhiites, posh Khan Market is like a second home. For a very, very few, Khan Market is home. Uma Marwah, who lived in house number 50 on the Market’s Middle Lane, was its eldest resident. She died in her sleep on the morning of 22 July 2017, aged 76. With her passing away, the city has lost one of the last remaining links to Khan Market’s early history. Khan Market started in 1951 with 154 shops and 74 flats. The shops were on the ground floor, the flats on the first. Until the 1980s, all the flats served as homes. Commerce crept up the stairs at the turn of the
City Hangout – Midnight in Nehru Place, South Delhi Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - July 21, 20171 A poetic world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Have you noticed how some places evoke different feelings at night and in the day? Take Nehru Place. Nobody would go to that business district for aesthetic reasons. The concrete block teems with crowds, offices and shops stocked with laptops and mobile phones. You can’t walk without stepping on the pavement stalls, and you can’t hear yourself think. But The Delhi Walla asks you to come here at midnight — that’s when Nehru Place is sheer poetry. A few days ago, I reached there a few minutes after zero hour and found a different world. The vast plazas were empty. The sky was clear and the moon shone majestically over the darkened buildings, which
City Style – Jaya Jaitly’s Sari Closet, Hazrat Nizamuddin East Style by The Delhi Walla - July 19, 20172 Style in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] She lives in a world of handwoven saris. Even the blinds of her drawing room are, well, saris (see second last picture at the bottom). One afternoon, The Delhi Walla enters the second-floor apartment of Jaya Jaitly in central Delhi’s idyllic Nizamuddin East. I want to see her sari closet, said to be one of the most beautiful in the capital. Only a few people in Delhi are known for their great collection of handloom saris. Some of the names that immediately come to mind are that of craft activist Laila Tyabji and thumri singer Vidya Rao. And, of course, Jaya Jaitly, the founder president of Dastkari Haat Samiti, an association of crafts
Netherfield Ball – Alika and Akbar’s Jane Austen Wedding on Aunt Jane’s 200th Death Anniversary, India Habitat Center City Parties by The Delhi Walla - July 16, 2017July 17, 20173 We love you Aunt Jane. [The Delhi Walla special; all photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The decorously subversive chronicler of England’s drawing rooms died on 18 July, 1817. In Sufism, the death anniversary is celebrated, not mourned. So, as we enter a timeline that marks 200 years without Jane Austen, here’s a celebration by many Janeites--one writer tells us why he does not read her and another pretends she is reading her for the first time (I also give my bit, at the bottom). Since all Jane Austen stories end in marriage, the various stories are obviously punctuated by the women-only wedding scenes of Alika, daughter of Begum Ishrat Sardar Ali and Late Justice Sardar Ali, and Akbar, son of Nasreen Bano
The Biographical Dictionary of Delhi – Amir Khusro, b. Patiali, Uttar Pradesh, 1253-1325 Biographical Dictionary by The Delhi Walla - July 14, 20170 The definitive directory of famous Delhiites. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] At 72, the maker of Hindustani classical music lost interest in the world. Poet Amir Khusro, the 14th century courtier to seven kings, was in mourning after the death of his spiritual mentor, Delhi’s Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. Khusro gave away his wealth, retired to Hazrat Nizamuddin’s tomb, died six months later, and was buried in the shrine’s courtyard. Perhaps it is all a legend. How could one person singularly invent the tabla and sitar, produce the first raga and create the Sufi music of qawwali? Most likely Hindustani classical music came out of a civilization, but Khusro’s poetic genius gave that civilization its Hindustani texture. Folksy and immediate, his language
Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Shehla Nawab, Tees Hazari Court City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - July 12, 2017July 12, 20171 Poetry in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] She writes in verse though her field is ‘criminal matters’. Shehla Nawab works as a lawyer and lives as a poet. The Delhi Walla meets her one afternoon at her chamber in north Delhi’s Tees Hazari court. Ms Nawab is as much at home with romantic words such as ‘ishq’ and ‘mohabbat’ as she is with ‘matrimonial cruelty’ and ‘domestic violence’ — subjects she handles daily at work. “Every day I meet people wrecked by the crises of private life,” she says in her deeply melodic voice. “Unlike property disputes, these discords, even if violent, have to be addressed delicately.” While the themes in Ms Nawab’s poetry mainly consist of heartbreak and love,
City Monument – Najaf Khan’s Tomb, Near Lodhi Road Railway Station Monuments by The Delhi Walla - July 9, 20171 Tomb without the dome. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] What if Humayun’s Tomb didn’t have a dome — just the stone plinth on which it stands? To see what it would look like, just head to Najaf Khan’s Tomb in central Delhi. This monument is more curious than most. There is nothing here except for a stone platform surrounded by trimmed lawns and centuries-old stone walls. Two marble cenotaphs sit atop the plinth. Where’s the dome? It looks like someone took it away. Conservation architect Ratish Nanda of the Aga Khan Foundation, the man behind the restoration of Humayun’s Tomb, tells The Delhi Walla that there was no dome to begin with. He calls it an ‘open tomb’ and says that Delhi has