City Hangout – Monsoon Bucket List, Around Town Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - July 15, 2018July 15, 20180 Best rainy day places. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] A little tap on the window-pane, as though something had struck it, followed by a plentiful light falling sound, as of grains of sand being sprinkled from a window overhead, gradually spreading, intensifying, acquiring a regular rhythm, becoming fluid, sonorous, musical, immeasurable, universal: it was the rain. These were the words of Marcel Proust, taken from his novel In Search of Lost Time. The French author, whose 147th birth anniversary was celebrated worldwide in July 2018, never came to Delhi and so never experienced our city's monsoon. But his description above seems like as if he had witnessed our rainy season's first shower while walking round the Inner Circle in Connaught
City Landmark – Mansion With Seven Doors, Galli Chooriwallan Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - July 12, 20180 The magic of a cobwebbed house. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It’s as clear as a smog-free daylight that Snow White and her seven brothers lived in Old Delhi, more specifically here in Galli Chooriwallan. This aged mansion could have been built only for them. Count yourself. Seven doors. Count the balconies, too. Eight—the extra one must be for our heroine. Truth be told, nobody lives in this picturesquely crumbling house today. The locals indifferently walk past these deliciously discolored weather-bruised doors. They are beautiful but even more beautiful—however objectionable it may sound—are the extraordinarily-elaborate cobwebs clinging to the edges of these doors. Surely a work of several seasons, one can spend a long time in gazing upon the labyrinthine patterns of
City Faith – Bibi Fatima Sam’s Sufi Dargah, Kaka Nagar Faith by The Delhi Walla - July 11, 20181 The world of a woman Sufi. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Women are allowed to enter here. The entry to the shrines of many sufi saints in Delhi are unjustly barred to women. So it is liberating to be in a dargah dedicated to a woman. Bibi Fatima Sam’s tomb in central Delhi’s Kaka Nagar is one of the city’s most serene (and possibly cleanest) sufi shrines. It used to consist of a roof built over her grave. The modern building — a big hall — with its smooth marble flooring is credited to a businessman in Daryaganj. Inside, the earthen water pots, the arched niches, the carpets, the chaadars and the glass chandelier combine to create a calmy ambiance. Red roses are
Mission Delhi – Kali Charan, Opposite Vyapar Kendra Market, Gurgaon Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - July 10, 20182 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sometimes you don’t need Freud to interpret a dream, or so it seems. Take Kali Charan. He is deep in sleep. May be this is his regular afternoon siesta. The cycle mechanic’s home-cum-shop is on a pavement in Gurgaon, just across the road from Vyapar Kendra market. It comprises of just a plastic sheet spread over an iron bed. There’s no fan inside and at the moment it’s very hot and humid. Now, Mr Charan is slowly opening his eyes. “I was dreaming,” he confesses to The Delhi Walla, lazily turning around in the bed. In his early 50s, Mr Charan begins to recall what he saw moments ago. “I
City Landmark – Anil Book Corner, Connaught Place Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - July 7, 20182 A bookstore's longtime life. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Buying books isn’t at all out of fashion. (Just ask book-loving online shoppers like The Delhi Walla.) But bookstores are another story altogether. In recent years, they’ve been shutting down across the city, one after the other. However, not all literary landmarks have disappeared. The lively Anil Book Corner at Connaught Place, established in 1972, has already outlived founder Anil Kumar and continues to offer a soothing time-tested experience: You don’t just turn up here to riffle through rare classics; you are rather more likely to bargain for a bundle of second-hand works. Passersbyhere are confronted with a literal tower of Daniel Steele paperbacks leaning precariously alongside the stack of Jackie Collins’. Here are
City Nature – The Magic of Portulaca Flowers, Lodhi Gardens Nature by The Delhi Walla - July 6, 20182 A border of beauty. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This polite sprinkling of colours ought to be a sari border. The composition is so exquisitely fragile that you fear a strong breeze might destroy the arrangement. This flowery bed snaking around a small, barely visited, lotus pond in Lodhi Gardens is one of our city’s many unseen beauties and this particularly beauty last only a season. “We plant these portulaca flowers in March,” tells gardener Ram Milan to The Delhi Walla. “They bloom in the heat and go away by the time the rain ends.”. The pond lies inside a butterfly conservatory and though a board claims that Lodhi Garden has six species of butterflies, this afternoon only insects and bees are
Mission Delhi – Muhammed Haroon, Galli Chooriwallan Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - July 4, 20180 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Life’s all stress. You may figure that out merely by scanning the faces of fellow commuters in the Metro. But Muhammed Haroon has found an escape. “I try not to think,” he says, explaining, “Thinking leads to tension.” The genial 65-year-old printer is perched on his chair beside a mound of paper shavings at his small family-run printing press here in Old Delhi's Galli Choori Wallan street. The summer’s seething sun has turned the lane outside into a stream of white-hot glare but inside it’s dark and cool. Patiently punching holes into standard-sized sheets that will be bound into a register, Mr Haroon’s eyes are focused on
City Food – Chicken Samosa, Maxim’s Bakery, Kailash Colony Food by The Delhi Walla - July 3, 2018July 3, 20180 Samosa with a difference. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] We all know that the samosa is the ideal graveyard for the potato. But there have been experimental rebellions now and then. A few eateries in Chandni Chowk serve samosas stuffed with green peas. A restaurant in Connaught Place makes jumbo-sized samosa crammed with oily chhole. A sweet shop in CR Park has mutton samosas. And now Delhi finally has a place for arguably its best chicken samosas. The longtime Maxim’s Bakery in Kailash Colony Market, since 1969, may not be as wildly famous as Wenger’s in Connaught Place but it does enjoy a cult following within a limited set. The bakery serves an array of creamy pastries — including one studded with
City Life – The Silicon Valley Couple, Near Cyberhub, Gurgaon Life by The Delhi Walla - July 2, 20180 A life of their choosing. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One day, two lovers fond of reading, writing and traveling give up their day-jobs and start living together to read, write and travel. Fairy tale, right? No. Meet Usha Alexander and Namit Arora, a twosome with exactly that life. Ms Alexander, 53, and Mr Arora, 50, live with their two air-purifiers in a park-facing apartment near Cyberhub in Gurugram. Settling down with glasses of red wine in the snug drawing room, the gracious Ms Alexander natters on softly in her barely-perceptible American accent how “We both wanted to pursue a life of writing…” About 16 years ago, Ms Alexander and Mr Arora were fashioning out corporate careers in California’s Silicon Valley when they first met
City Style – Hafizullah’s Corduroy, Old Delhi Style by The Delhi Walla - July 1, 2018July 1, 20180 Style in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Many people flock to Old Delhi for Red Fort or Chandni Chowk. If only they can spot the equally unique Hafizullah. This 80-year-old retired darzi, or tailor, is the only one in the Walled City to wear corduroy trousers daily without fail--at least that has been The Delhi Walla's observation. The soft-spoken gentleman stands out starkly from the rest of the crowd in all his sartorial elegance, more so because most men in this part of the city are seen either in pajamas or lungis. “I keep switching between my red and brown corduroys,” he reveals, looking amused at the interest being shown on his everyday dressing. This morning, while enjoying his customary