City Landmark – Brijlal and Sons, Meharchand Market Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - September 16, 20190 The gentrification survivor. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It wasn’t always that way. But now, a pot of tea for one at the Meharchand Market can set you back by 150 rupees. Flush with expensive restaurants and showrooms, this market in Central Delhi has moved very far from its origins as a rehabilitation project for partition refugees. Happily, the ongoing gentrification hasn’t yet wiped out all the beloved and very homey enterprises such as Gujral Brothers and Shyam Book Depot. Or Brijlal and Sons, set up in 1947 when Rawalpindi grocer Brijlal was allotted the shop to build a new life in newly independent India. “His portrait isn’t here but our father’s (Vivekanand) photograph is on the wall,” says Parveen Kumar Anand. He’s one
Mission Delhi – Rathore, Sector 15, Gurgaon Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - September 15, 2019September 15, 20190 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Dark, cool, silent and shaded, it has become his refuge. Every afternoon, he migrates inside this little space and forgets the world. This is one of the many drainage pipes lying on a roadside in Gurgaon’s Sector 15 in the Greater Delhi Region. “They were left here by a contractor two months ago for a small bridge to be built over a nallah (drain),” says the young man in shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt, vaguely gesturing towards his back. This afternoon Rathore—he confirms this is his full name—is snugly ensconced inside the cement pipe. “I always come here alone.” He lives with his family nearby, and sells teddy bears on the
City Walk – Strolling With Twilight in Delhi, Old Delhi Walks by The Delhi Walla - September 14, 20190 A good walking guide. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It’s customary for people to walk through their city’s historic quarters while holding on to informative guidebooks. Delhi is blessed to have inspired many fine novels and these works of fiction too must be exploited as unconventional walking guides. First published in 1940 by Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press, Ahmed Ali’s novel Twilight in Delhi is a sophisticated flâneur’s ideal guidebook to Old Delhi. Keep a copy of the Twilight in your back pocket during your walk and fish it out at appropriate locations. For instance, on reaching Pahari Rajaan lane in Chitli Qabar Chowk, flip to page 14 (of the old OUP paperback edition): “The air was filled with the shouts of the
City Food – Chilli Gobhi, Gymkhana Club, Gurgaon Food by The Delhi Walla - September 13, 2019September 13, 20190 Greasy love. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] First thing first. It’s not that famous Gymkhana, the one that’s close to the prime minister’s residence in Delhi. The restaurant at the HUDA Gymkhana Club in Gurgaon’s Sector 4 in the Greater Delhi Region has no pretensions. The curtains are frayed. The garden-facing windows are smudged with misty stains. The walls look a tad discolored. The ceiling glows with red and green lamps as if inspired from traffic lighting. The tables are decked with fake flowers. This late afternoon the air in the empty restaurant is steeped in the scent of some creamy gravy. The lunch hour is long past and a housekeeper is sweeping the floor. A handful of waiters are watching a
Mission Delhi – Sakeena, Central Delhi Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - September 13, 2019September 13, 20190 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sakeena regards herself as a modern woman with specific reasons to back her claim. “I earn my own money,” says the lady, asserting that she is not financially dependent on anybody. Only in her early 20s, this resident of central Delh’s Sarai Kale Khan works as an unofficial parking attendant alongside a busy avenue. She assists car drivers to park along the roadside, which is within walking distance to a cluster of popular monuments. “The little money I earn comes handy to raise the two children,” says Sakeena, her well-oiled hair clinging to the scalp like black paint. The young woman is on friendly terms with a group of families living
Home Sweet Home – Bird Housing, Galli Sooiwallan Street Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - September 12, 20191 A dormitory for pigeons. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Question of the day: where, in fact, do the city pigeons sleep? Truth is that they’re bound to sleep in all sorts of unlikely places, like window ledges. In Old Delhi, where keeping pigeons is a hobby, they often live in giant cages installed on rooftops. But then there’s Galli Sooiwallan street in the Walled City where some residents have set up a kind of free public dormitory for the birds. For instance: Small wooden boxes are stacked above the beautifully arched gateway of a private dwelling. “These boxes are their home, but they’re of course free to fly about when they want to,” explains a local dweller. “And they simply return to the
City Hangout – Surinder Tea Stall, Gurgaon Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - September 11, 2019September 11, 20190 Stall's saga. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The pavement chai stalls are often a storehouse of hard-luck stories. Some are suffused with the life of their customers. Others are permeated with the hopes and disappointments of their owners. Surinder Tea Stall has been in Gurgaon’s Sadar Bazar in the Greater Delhi Region for only two years. Its history however goes back three decades when Surinder Mehto set up his roots in Delhi as an assistant in a “hardware sanitary” shop in the Capital’s Rama Market. He was then 20. For almost a decade he worked with “complete devotion” but was rudely jolted when his employer refused to urgently lend him 10,000 rupees following his father’s death in the village. “Dil toot gaya
City Food – Milk Shakes, Around Town Food by The Delhi Walla - September 10, 20190 Downing the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] When belligerent Bombayites assert their refusal to accept Delhi’s cosmopolitanism, they dismiss its people as “villagers”. They are right, up to a point. Delhi has 275 (registered) villages. The most upscale neighbourhoods lie next to villages. Indeed, you must have spotted the elderly “taus” with their turbans and hookahs regally lounging on their string charpoys bang across the street from hipster cafes. The city’s charming rural character is also reflected in its milkshakes. A fine dining restaurant may risk serving a watery banana shake, but a street cart will never dare to do that if it wants to survive. In villages, parents who can afford it are particular that their children get fresh buffalo milk. In Delhi,
City Landmark – Bimla Devi’s Water Filter, Sadar Bazaar, Gurgaon Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - September 9, 2019September 9, 20190 A woman's portrait. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] She isn’t famous, but she is a public landmark. Bimla Devi has a pyayu, a cold water filter for thirsty passersby, named after her in Gurgaon's Sadar Bazaar in the Greater Delhi Region. “I set it up this summer in May,” says atta-chakki (flour mill) owner Prem Chand. The middle-aged trader installed the pyayu “as a respect to my mataji’s (mother’s) memories.” Ms Devi died in 1989, aged 80. This dispatch is a fleeting glimpse of a woman whose life perhaps paralleled that of many women of her generation. She was born in Etah, UP, and moved to Gurgaon after her marriage to a town merchant. The 18-year-old girl went on to become the mother
City Faith – Temple Bells, Khan Market Faith by The Delhi Walla - September 9, 2019September 9, 20190 Faith in commerce. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Just another evening at the Khan Market in Delhi. An important-looking man in white kurta-pajama and a black sleeveless jacket enters a luxury showroom, his gun-toting bodyguards in grey safari suits hover nearby. In the meantime, two young men, outfitted beautifully, are walking down Front Lane chatting in English with an American accent about the lack of good cafes at their college campus in Sonepat; while one of the market’s cleaning women—Shefalee—is slowly dragging a garbage bag along the road. At around 7pm, the temple bells suddenly resound in the market from Shri Gopal Mandir tucked away in one corner of this posh shopping destination. This is the temple’s daily aarti hour heralding the