City Monument – Naubat Khana, Red Fort Monuments by The Delhi Walla - May 30, 20220 A lesser-known monument. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Red Fort is like a poetry anthology, and its scattered, damaged monuments are like poems. Naubat Khana is one of the most tender ones. Its walls are sculpted with flower and leaves. The angles and curves of the white ceiling smoothly merge into each other. The red sandstone seem to be producing a music that is indiscernible to the ordinary human ear, but distinctly felt. Like moonshine that you may see, but cannot touch. Naubat Khana was a seat of musicians, and music was said to be performed here five times every day. Additionally, the drummers stationed at this so-called drum house were obliged to strike their drums each time the emperor
City Food – Mukesh’s Roasted Bhuttas, Anand Vihar Food by The Delhi Walla - May 30, 20220 Taste of monsoon. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Are summers ending and monsoons knocking at the door? Yes. That’s what Mukesh feels. Three days ago this street food vendor started winding down his summertime business of icy chuskis, and shifting to bhutta. His cart, outside the bus terminus in Delhi’s Anand Vihar, is decked with ears of the golden corn. “Every year I start selling roasted bhutta around this time,” he says, peeling off the leaves from a bhutta. Mukesh talks without making eye contact, as if he were mumbling to himself. The truly rare sight to be spotted on his cart, however, is of an earthen stove that he made two days days ago while relaunching the bhutta. The