The evening magic-realism.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Not everybody likes sunsets. They can be linked to serious melancholy, even a kind of death.

(If you choose to think like that.)

But there’s a healthier approach. For instance: If you happen to find yourself at Vaishali Metro in Ghaziabad, at just the right time, the sun has spectacularly shrunk to a golden disc. It now lends a kind of ethereal presence to the sprawling urban landscape—including the streaming traffic and tired commuters.

Well, yes, the commuters: providing special beauty as they slowly stroll from the station across that footbridge, clutching shoulder bags or briefcases. These fellow citizens aren’t facing us and so, like the setting sun, they’re reduced to being their own silhouettes.

Every train deposits ever more humanity, seemingly endless numbers, who stream silently across the bridge. And usually alone in their musings. Each and every person, however special, is akin to protagonist in their very own life stories.

Far away in distant Anand Vihar, a chimney chugs smoke into the orange sky, offering a scene akin to an unfinished Renaissance painting. But alas. The sun sinks far too swiftly, gone within a few minutes. Soon enough the commuters are scarcely visible, losing the magic imparted to them by the twilight’s last gleams.

We, the algorithms

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