Glasses of chai. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The imperial evening in the Palace of Mirrors is already strained to begin with. And then the rebel-courtesan gets more and more mutinous in her dance. She even picks up a knife from the fruit platter. Within moments, the smirking woman multiplies into a multitude of mirrored images. One Anarkali is now a thousand offending Anarkalis, infuriating Emperor Akbar to indescribable rage. This famously thrilling scene in the classic 1960 movie Mughal-e-Azam was filmed in a Mumbai film set in which the makers painstakingly recreated the legendary Sheesh Mahal of Lahore Fort. The wall, as in the original 17th century Sheesh Mahal, was made of thousands of decorative glass tiles, or the sheesh. A

Odd architecture. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Two tiny shops, clinging tightly to each other. Atop lies what must had once been a house—now reduced to its skeletal frame. Wild brown grass has claimed the vanished roof’s still existing wooden beams. Such ordinariness on the ground level, such extraordinariness above. Together, they might as well constitute what is known in art as magical realism. The ever-dependable Wikipedia credits magic realism for painting “a realistic view of the modern world while also adding magical elements, often dealing with the blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality.” And this sight in Paharganj’s Main Bazar encapsulates that same merging of fantasy with reality. Even more remarkable is the blasé attitude of the pedestrians who

The other sides of the market. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Nobody is denying the slow, subtle charm of Aurobindo Market. Its neighbourly vibes, where everyone seems to know everyone, are soothing. There is a certain old-fashioned politeness in the ambiance of its two family-run bookstores, its fruit sellers, and in its many tailors scattered in the market’s corridors. At the homey dairy (since 1974), the display board cutely misspells its speciality, paneer, as ‘panner.’ The market’s dogs rarely bark. But more charming than all of these things are the little spaces that intersperse throughout the south Delhi market, like little islands composing their own archipelago. These are places sans any commerce—they have nothing to do with shops and consumers. Most

Midnight in the graveyard. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is midnight. People here are sleeping. They have been asleep for a long time, though some have closed their eyes more recently than others. You can tell that by the fresh earth heaped upon their resting place. This is the vast Batla House Qabristan in south Delhi, next to Jamia Millia Islamia University. No stars are twinkling in the smoggy black sky, but tonight’s perfectly round white moon is shining like a frangipani in bloom. Its milky glow is falling discreetly upon the headstones, which are jutting out of the graveyard messy and uneven, like an infant’s growing teeth. The moonshine is illuminating the graves gently, turning their mud-covered surface to

A place for backpackers. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The cafés are once again crowded with backpackers. The paves are full of the blab of Israelis. The touts too have surfaced. Paharganj is back in business. If only. But this is what businesses in Delhi’s hotel district are dreaming for. Especially from this week as India reopens its doors to foreign travellers for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, by resuming the tourist visas. Paharganj’s Madan Café is optimistic. “We closed on the first day of the first lockdown and remained shut all these months because our primary customers were foreign tourists,” says Aditya Madan, the founder’s 30-year-old son. “We reopened on the auspicious day of Diwali.” In the BC (before