City Landmark – Midland Bookshop, Shopping Mall, Gurgaon Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - February 28, 2019February 28, 20190 A link in the chain. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Many snobby Delhiites crib about Gurgaon as a destination with nothing about culture and everything about malls (as if malls were not an integral part of our modern civilisation). One of the popular reasons given to dismiss the place is that it doesn’t have bookstores. It’s a false accusation. There’s a book store specialising in hardback editions (in a mall!) and there’s a cute bookshop at the railway statio—both have appeared on the pages of this blogsite. Then there is one of Gurgaon’s oldest surviving bookstores, in one of its oldest surviving malls. New Midland Book Shop, in the quaintly named Shopping Mall in DLF Phase 1, might ring a bell even to
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Deepshi Chowdhury, Noida Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - February 28, 2019February 28, 20190 The 213rd death. [Text and photo sent by Deepshi Chowdhury] There she lay on her bed, her face serene. Deepshi Chowdhury was found dead in her apartment. Lying on the bed, she was as still as a Paulo Coelho beside her. She died in the most ordinary fashion in contrast to the kind of death she fantasized. Fortunately, a Faiz's ghazal playing in the stereo beside her infused a bit of romantic element to the circumstances. Ms Chowdhury’s friends recall how she wished for absurd things like marrying Urdu, the language of her beloved poets. Her two bosom friends allege her of suffocating them with her love, for guffawing at her own self-deprecating jokes, and catching feelings for people more frequently than she wrote
City Hangout – The Bridge Over the Railway Station, New Delhi Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - February 26, 2019February 26, 20190 The bridge of escape. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Confess it. Even if you love Delhi, there are times when you want to get out of the city. This conflicting emotion is most intensely experienced on the road bridge over the New Delhi Railway Station. Go any evening and stand over the bridge’s pedestrian track facing the station’s platforms. The horizon is framed by the soft outlines of Connaught Place’s business towers. Underneath is the rail station. The tracks that lead to the station intersect each other like the channels of a river. On each platform: passengers, dogs, beggars, coolies, drug addicts, labourers, and tea vendors. A passing rail engine gives out a long wail, as if it were finding the
City Life – Cable Art, Old Delhi Life by The Delhi Walla - February 25, 2019February 25, 20191 The wired aesthetics. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Guidebooks are silent about it. As though sightseers in Old Delhi would utterly fail to notice all those power cables dangling low, all over the place. These thick cables in the historic Walled City are affixed to electrical poles like sleepy pythons entangled with one another so densely that they can’t be distinguished one from the other. Sometimes, the installations are spread across narrow lanes in such complicated patterns that they can easily act as metaphors for a street map in a magic realism novel. You can encounter one such classic gossamer web on stepping out of Chawri Bazar metro station. There they are, the fantastically intertwined power cables looped around an electric pole,
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Varsha Pednekar, Goa Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - February 25, 2019February 25, 20190 The 212nd death. [Text and photos sent by Varsha Pednekar] For a person who loved being alone, dying alone too must have been joyous. Varsha Pednekar, 30, was found dead in her bed with her two dogs at her feet. She was fascinated by Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, and Amy Winehouse and wished to join the '27 Club' herself. Alas, she was 3 years too late. An empty bottle of her sleep medication was found by her bedside. Next to it were a few datura pods and a bottle of cheap Sauvignon. She didn't want to take any chances this time it seemed. And it worked indeed. Gone too soon, a few may say. But Varsha knew this day was coming since she
Home Sweet Home – Sheeba & Arshad’s House, Chhatta Sheikh Mangloo Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - February 22, 2019February 22, 20190 A house in Delhi. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] There are as many staircases in the big house as there are sights of the Walled City from the roof. This is the Old Delhi home of Arshad Ali Fehmi and his wife, Sheeba Aslam. He, in his words, is an activist “trying to revive the pristine glory of the Jama Masjid with the help of likeminded people”. She is pursuing a PhD thesis on the “Absence of Protest among Indian Muslim Women Post-Shah Bano.” The couple lives with their son, Omaiyer, a restaurateur and university student. Their home in Chhatta Sheikh Mangloo offers a half-view of the grand Jama Masjid. Spread over 500 square yards, it has 25 rooms, two courtyards and
City Food – Manjeet Singh’s ‘Car-Restaurant’, Sham Nath Marg Food by The Delhi Walla - February 21, 20192 The karhi chawal consolation. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] They always look old. No matter how recent they may be, street food stalls always seem dated, deeply rooted to their hyperlocal address. Often, they look like they’ve been standing here even before your dadaji was born — which, actually, many of them have. This is certainly not the case with Manjeet Singh’s so-called “Car Restaurant”. It is a mere eight-year-old establishment in north Delhi’s Sham Nath Marg. The social ecosystem, however, that this teenieweenie shack has created around it makes it appear as venerable as Chandni Chowk’s Old Famous Jalebi Wala. Mr Singh’s restaurant consists of a small white car whose boot serves as the buffet table. The food is prepared at
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Vishakha Khandelwal, Indore Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - February 21, 2019February 21, 20190 The 211st death. [Text and photos sent by Vishakha Khandelwal] In a faintly lit room, with Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” playing in the background on speakers, Vishakha Khandelwal was found dead under mysterious circumstances, with a sketch book and a felt-tip pen in her hand. The words “Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go” were playing when she was discovered pale, lifeless on the floor of the room, with her face towards her favorite scribbled wall, with her little pieces of what she liked to call “art”. She had gotten home just a few hours ago before dying, after spending an afternoon full of moments of putting up pretentious smiles and fake laughter with the people she thought she loved the most, but she
City Walk – Amrita Shergil Marg, Central Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - February 20, 20190 Strolling through a bubble. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This is a land of bungalows so elegant and trees so grand that each appears to be a republic of its own. A peaceful, hushed world; the traffic is always scarce, and the only sounds are that of birds. Fortified by hedges, guard cabins and boundary walls, each house is like a castle. Some of these drawing rooms might be decked with the works of Amrita Shergil, the celebrated painter after whom the neighbourhood is named. Over 100 Shergils are displayed in the nearby National Gallery of Modern Arts. But don’t limit your excursion to daytime alone. Walking across this road on moonlit nights makes for an incredibly lush sensory experience. The air is suffused
Our Self-Written Obituaries – Chetna Sabharwal, Dwarka, Delhi Farewell Notice by The Delhi Walla - February 20, 20191 The 210th death. [Text and photos sent by Chetna Sabharwal] Chetna Sabharwal, unfortunately for some people (hopefully), left this world on 28th of November at 11:42pm. She died of a coffee overdose. It was her fantasy to die like this, so this is one thing that people close to her should not feel sad about. Ms Sabharwal was the sweetest person known to some people. Whether it was because she never imposed her opinions on others or it was simply because she didn't care for people to agree with her, none of us will ever know. Her passion, apart from drinking coffee, was hoarding books; of course she read the ones that piqued her interest. But she did not finish each and