City Hangout – Upstairs View, Khan Market Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - July 19, 20210 The market innards. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Chimneys painted in funky yellow and red. Long AC ducts of varying lengths, spreading out like the pipes of a plumbing system. Black water tanks perched like giant insects. The whole thing looks like the post-modern panorama of some industrial landscape. It is beautiful and ugly at the same time. This is Khan Market, Delhi’s opulent shopping district. But from this vantage point you won’t see that familiar bazaar of bookstores and boutiques, cafes and restaurants, the rich and the rich VIPs. The aerial equivalent of the market’s gutters, this is the world of Khan Market rooftops, as seen from a showroom’s second floor roof—its door lying accidentally open on this cloudy afternoon.
City Food – Nafees Khan’s Sherbet Stall, Gali Suiwallan Street Food by The Delhi Walla - July 19, 20210 A steady landmark. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He’s here, still all smiles—or so it seems, for he’s in a mask. He has survived through the two surges of the coronavirus pandemic. He is the face of a long-time Old Delhi institution. Nafees Khan runs a sherbet stand in Old Delhi’s Gali Suiwallan. It’s a landmark so modest that when he wraps up his things for the night, no sign of the stall is left, as if it had never been. And yet, it is so much part of the daytime landscape that not finding Mr Khan would be like living in a world suddenly bereft of a beloved friend. “I stayed at home during the lockdown… I survived by borrowing money
City Walk – Disappearing Bungalows, Green Park Walks by The Delhi Walla - July 15, 20210 Going with the wind. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] A gate just big enough for a car to pass through. Beyond it, a small lawn on the side, not fanatically trimmed. And then the single-storey house, not modern-looking, but not nostalgically old-fashioned either. It appears to be a child of the late 1970s, when such no-fuss design was said to be in vogue. This is a residence in Green Park. Until a decade ago it was just an average sight in the leafy south Delhi colony. But now it stands out for being less common, though still quite a few of them exist. Like many genteel Delhi neighbourhoods, Green Park is adapting to the new age. The homes that were originally built
City Life – Back of Labourers, Entire Delhi Region Life by The Delhi Walla - July 14, 20210 Back story. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Parked outside a narrow lane in Gurgaon’s Bhim Garh Kheri in the Greater Delhi Region, the handcart is stacked with bricks. Two labourers are carrying these to a house being built up the street. One of the men packs 18 bricks on his back and walks towards the construction site. The bricks aren’t tied together. The stack rests on a scrap of strong jute fabric, which seems to have once been part of a gunny sack. The man’s back is bent forward. He returns a few minutes later. Labourer Kishore, 22, says that “in the village, I would have worked as a mazdoor (labourer) on big people’s fields, earning about ₹200 daily. Here
City Landmark – Jamun Tree, Connaught Place Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - July 12, 20210 Season's sight. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The ground looks like a fresh battlefield, splattered with blood stains, slippery with hundreds of used bullets. The blood isn’t red, but purple. And the bullets are actually jamuns. They have fallen from the tree above. It’s jamun season in Delhi. The lanes teem with vendors selling these berries. Their straw baskets are piled up with mounds of these soury treats. Posh fruit shops sell the exact same fruit, but neatly stacked inside transparent plastic boxes. Parts of Delhi are full of jamun trees. One evening in Deer Park, a group of folks were spotted shaking its trunk, making the jamuns fall from the branches like a sudden shower, before picking them up. There
City Moment – Syed & Bhuriya, Ansari Road Moments by The Delhi Walla - July 10, 20210 A Delhi instant. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Rickshaw puller Syyed lives alone. That’s not entirely correct, he clarifies. “I’m not completely alone. I have a saathi (companion).” Syyed explains that at night he sleeps on his rickshaw. “I park it on the pavement… many other rickshaw wale of the area sleep the same way, on the passengers’ seat of their (respective) rickshaws, which are parked in one long row... we are friendly with each other.” This conversation is unfolding one late morning near central Delhi’s Ansari Road. And now Syyed opens up about the aforementioned saathi—Bhuriya. “It’s not bhuriya, an old woman, but bhuriya, the brown coloured.” Syyed’s Bhuriya is a stray dog. Every night she sleeps on his rickshaw’s floor-board, or underneath the
Julia Child in Delhi – Siddharth Kapila’s “Modern Healthy-ish” Dal Makhani, Bengali Market & Leeds Julia Child's Delhi by The Delhi Walla - July 10, 20210 The great chef’s life in Delhi. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] This lawyer-cum-writer has challenged tradition. A resident of Delhi’s Bengali Market, Siddharth Kapila has appended a “modern healthy-ish take” to dal makhanni, the dish whose joy lies in its rich makhan, or butter. Tweaking the soul of a beloved dish is a risky undertaking. Good for him he did it in faraway England, where he is currently stranded. The 30-something Mr Kapila had gone to visit friends there in March, and couldn’t return as planned due to the second surge of coronavirus in Delhi. Speaking on a WhatsApp video call from Leeds town, he confesses “I like combining elements of different cuisines, without taking away what the original is
Mission Delhi – Liyakat Ali, Central Delhi Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - July 8, 20210 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] These days you rarely see hand fans. Most of them, anyway, tend to be of plastic. But this hand fan is so distinct that you might like to have it as drawing room decoration. It’s entirely made of cloth. The fabric is square, pinkish, and enhanced by a red border. Little patches of pink and red are arranged alternately around the fan. In the centre is tucked a tiny swirl of yellow. Sadly, the fan is not for sale. “I made it myself,” says Liyakat Ali in a tone without ego. An elderly beggar in a central Delhi locality, he is sitting this evening on the street-side,
City Food – Sattu Ghol, Turkman Gate Food by The Delhi Walla - July 6, 20210 Summer's landmark. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Mughal-era Turkman Gate marks the border between New and Old Delhi. It’s been here for centuries; its stony ramparts a symbol of steadfastness in this world of constant shift. Now, it is also becoming a souvenir to the future generations of the greatest public upheaval of our times—the coronavirus pandemic. But look down carefully on one side of this gateway. There’s another monument attached to it like a limpet—far younger, more vulnerable, and extremely modest. It’s Mahinder Singh’s sattu drinks—or sattu ghol—stall. This establishment has been operating from this spot for more than 40 years. Actually, 40 summers. Mr Singh sells sattu drink only in the sweltering season, from April to August; the
Mission Delhi – Muhammed Saif, Central Delhi Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - July 3, 20210 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] I’m resting—the thought has taken over Muhammed Saif. At this time of the afternoon, he would be hauling large amounts of construction material on the hand-pulled cart along this central Delhi bazaar. But here’s a surprise respite. His next assignment is after a few minutes, so he has taken advantage of the situation by lying on his bed. The ceiling fan is providing a needful breeze. “I’m letting my body rest,” he says. In his 30s, Mr Saif is in a check lungi and a T-shirt, his red flip-flops by his bed. His bed is a thin mattress on the floor. The room is dusty. One side