City Faith – Tree God, Hanuman Temple Faith by The Delhi Walla - May 23, 20210 Sacred green. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This small Hanuman temple stands in a sprawling yard, here in south Delhi. A peepal tree’s sharp-tipped leaves make a jungle of shadows on the temple’s back wall. But the compound has another peepal, a larger one, and more luscious, in the front. Its branches soar above the fourth floor windows of adjacent buildings. It would take at least three people to embrace the trunk completely. This morning the yard is empty. A woman enters. She is wearing a green sari, and an orange mask. Her head is modestly covered by the sari’s pallu. The woman takes off her slippers and, instead of heading inside the temple, she turns towards the front yard peepal. She
Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Siddharth Sethi’s Poem in Lockdown, Kailash Colony City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - May 23, 20210 Poetry in the city. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] While Delhi passes through one of its most tragic times in living history, it has citizens distilling their experiences into art. Isolated within home in Kailash Colony, actor Siddharth Sethi, 20, is away from fellow actors and rehearsals, away from the audience and the stage. “Theatre was my escape into a reality other than mine,” he says on a WhatsApp video chat. With the city in lockdown, he is flailing about in only one reality. This reality too is rich, comprising of his “dada,” parents, and younger sister, Suhani, who is holding his mobile for this photo shoot. There are online classes to stay busy—Mr Sethi is a literature student in Delhi University’s Hansraj