Mission Delhi – Dherapad, Central Delhi Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - June 24, 20200 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is standing motionless. His large eyes are gazing straight ahead, unblinking, as if penetrating into infinity. The middle-aged man in shirt and pajamas is stationed by a pavement in a congested central Delhi market. It is very early in the morning and the shops are still shuttered. The man has huge bags hanging down from both his shoulders. The plastic sack lying by his side is of a basmati rice brand, printed with the illustration of an extravagantly dressed nobleman ensconced beside a mound of luscious biryani. “That’s also my samaan (belonging),” he mutters, nodding his head towards the rice sack—it is filled with something too, but
City Food – Mango Nuggets & Recipes Food by The Delhi Walla - June 24, 2020June 24, 20200 Season's taste. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is the time of the year when a Mirza Ghalib devotee could offer at his tomb in Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti a tribute that would have made the poet very happy. Yes, one is thinking of mangoes — Ghalib had a weakness for wine and mangoes. And lest you forget, amid all the depressing news about the coronavirus, Delhi is amid its mango season. In the book Ghalib: Life And Letters, authors Ralph Russell and Khurshidul Islam quote the poet writing in a letter that he “would eat them (mangoes) until my belly was bloated and I could hardly breathe”. In another letter, comparing mango to wine, Ghalib says, “I thought of each mango as
City Library – Shalini Bahadur’s Books, Gurgaon Library by The Delhi Walla - June 24, 20200 Life with books. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] She woke up very early in her Gurgaon condo the morning after prime minister’s first speech on janta curfew, the one that preempted the much-longer coronavirus-ridden lockdown. By 6.15 am, she had hit the Western Peripheral Expressway, not stopping her silver Honda Amaze anywhere, heading straight to Chandigarh. With her two daughters, sets of six clothes for each, plastic gloves, a bank cheque book, and Kristin Hannah’s novel True Colors. Shalini Bahadur was quitting the Millennium City in the Greater Delhi Region to spend the forthcoming lockdown at her parents’ sprawling house in Chandigarh’s Sector 9. “I wanted to look after mom and dad, and also to make sure the girls had a