Photo Essay – Seeking Big City Solitude, Around Town
The love of anonymity. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Loneliness is a horror, as poet Emily Dickinson famously wrote, not to be surveyed. But have you ever felt its icy sensation on your skin? In the crowded city…
City Food – Jane Austen’s Chai Stall, Bharat Ram Road
The love of pavement tea. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] If British writer Jane Austen was still alive and happened to stumble across this unusual tea stall she’d probably express ardent admiration for its owner. Mahaveer runs this…
City Landmark – A Civic Mortuary, Gurgaon
A face of life. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] A yard lined with rooms, a small temple under a banyan tree and a few bare hospital-like stretchers. This is not a place you would like to visit even…
Mission Delhi – Bano, Hazrat Sarmad Shahid’s Dargah
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Over the last few days, she’s experienced a pain in her legs; and finally decided to get a tube of medication from a government hospital…
City Landmark – Wali’s Hair-Cutting Saloon, Bazaar Chitli Qabar
The heart of the Walled City. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Old Delhi has all sorts of places you’ll visit when it’s high time to feel good about yourself. Perhaps the stone steps of a good old Jain…
City Food – Mango Pickle Walla, Around Town
A pickle vendor. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It’s hardly a secret that Delhi abounds with hawkers selling just about everything imaginable. Such as toothbrushes made from Neem twigs. Then we have Raju’s homemade pickles packed in a…
City Hangout – Emu Sighting, Vasant Vihar
Somewhere in Australia. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Silent leafy lanes and shiny chauffeur-driven cars. Gracious bungalows and embassies of remote-seeming countries like Eritrea and Gabon. And lots and lots of trees — in parks and in private…
Mission Delhi – Aqil Ahmad, Ghalib Academy
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He arrived in Delhi years ago with just two sets of clothing and a much-thumbed paperback dealing with Urdu literature. Forty years later, poetry critic…
City Life – Listings for Living, Local EMU Trains
Local dreams. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Perhaps you too have noticed that the advertisements on those nice air-conditioned Metro coaches tend to involve big companies or big-budget movies? That can’t be said of informal advertising flourishing on…
City Culture – Artful Pavement, IFFCO Chowk
A roadside with stories. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The sidewalk is as wide as a bazaar lane and a paved one at that. But it’s stinking of urine. And yet you ought to come here. Because this…
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