City Landmark – Metalsmith Muhammed Ikram’s Workshop, Galli Chooriwallan Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - July 30, 20220 Museum of metal. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Metal coerced into a multitude of shapes. All these disparate tools hanging on hooks nailed into the walls. The tools cover a part of the floor, too. This is like a museum of metallic equipments. They are arranged very neatly in a very little space, here in Old Delhi’s Galli Chooriwallan street. “My walid saheb, Muhammed Aaqil, opened this shop… he died 20 years ago,” says “luhar” Muhammed Ikram. In his early 50s, his eyes are of the same smoky grey-blue as his shop’s walls. All day long, he works with iron and fire, hammering the metal into intended shapes in a small bhatti, a furnace, which is built on the floor,
City Life – Tikona Park, Near Oberoi Hotel Flyover Life by The Delhi Walla - July 28, 20220 Changing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The concrete island beside the traffic light has been dug up, and the raw earth is now full of new trees, so young that their trunks look like mere stalks. Maybe, after some time, the area will have become a dense forest. If so, it shall be a most unlikely place for a jungle—this broad road divider near the Oberoi hotel flyover, where Lodhi Road intersects with Zakir Husain Road. The trees were planted by the “sarkar (government)” just ten days ago, says Farooq, who runs a kebab stall nearby. The road divider — popularly known as Tikona Park for its triangular shape — was a refuge for people without home. They had to
City Hangout – Gwal Pahari, Near Golf Course Road Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - July 28, 20220 City escape. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] I love Rashi—the declaration on the rock is scrawled in white. The ‘love’ is depicted with a heart. The same declaration covers the surface of the adjacent rock. The rock next to it is dedicated to Rashi too, but with a birthday greeting. Across the road, the rock on the facing hill shows the same declaration to the same person in the same handwriting. If this is a lover’s proposal, then it certainly is a romantic place to do that. This hilly spot is the closest we in Delhi can ever get to a landscape resembling the mountainous getaways of Nainital or Mussoorie. The world here is made of hills, boulders, and dense
Mission Delhi – Kavita Joshi Rai, Lodhi Garden Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - July 26, 20220 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This mobile phone snapper has perhaps the most beautifully named instagram handle in Delhi. Please shake paws with Kavita Joshi Rai, the founder of @dogs_of_lodhi, aka Dogs of Lodhi Garden. On a recent rainy evening, she was sighted near the park’s gate no. 7 with friends Jingle, Happy, Tiny, Mr John Snow, Misthi, and Frecky. You started your Insta account in March last year. I’m constantly photographing the many inhabitants of Lodhi Garden and thought this would be more efficient way of sharing my images. I’m part of a group of animal-friendly souls that feed, nurture, medicate the park’s creatures, and have been walking in the garden ever
City Landmarks – A-One Flower & More A-One Places, Old Delhi & Around Town Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - July 26, 2022July 26, 20220 A-one. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Galli Chooriwallan, the street of bangle sellers. Mohalla Qabristan, the neighbourhood of the graveyard. Pahari Imli, the hill of the tamarind. Each of these names are requiems for lost worlds. Galli Chooriwallan is no longer an exclusive address of bangle sellers. Mohalla Qabristan no longer hosts burials. Pahari Imli no longer has its tamarind tree. The names of Old Delhi places are severed from the Old Delhi of today, and barely have any connection with the wider metropolis. But one landmark is an exception. Not only is its name very modern, but it also helps reduce the gap between the Walled City and the big wide Delhi existing outside its vanished walls. A-One Flower makes
City Walk – M-Block Market, GK-II Walks by The Delhi Walla - July 24, 20221 A walk through good life. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is a truth commonly acknowledged, that the universe has three GKs — or Greater Kailashes. GK I and GK II are located in south Delhi, and GK III is much farther in the south of the capital, where it is also known as Goa. One isn’t sure if the joke is on Goa, or on the rich beautiful people of Delhi, many of whom have their “second homes” in that coastal getaway. The rest of us might as well get a glimpse of the fashionable world by traipsing around in GK II’s M Block Market. This afternoon, the road leading to it is jammed with a row of long cars —
City Monument – Shahjahani Masjid, Pataudi House Monuments by The Delhi Walla - July 22, 20220 White mosque. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It looks so soft, as if frosted with cream cheese. The domes, the minarets and the walls are dusted in white, like icing on a cake. This fragility is deceptive. Shahjahani Masjid may be of lakhori (aka kakkaya) bricks but is sturdier and older than the Walled City’s many derelict stone monuments. It is even older than the iconic Jama Masjid, believe the locals. Rigorous investigations, however, make these truths vulnerable to challenges. An authoritative guidebook refers to the mosque only by the name of its location (Pataudi House). While an eminent conservation architect disputes the claims to its ancestry, asserting the monument to be as recent as the late-Mughal period. This afternoon, the mosque
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Michelle Sanya Tirkey, Not in West Delhi Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - July 22, 20220 The parlour confession. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] She lives in west Delhi’s Janakpuri and admits of having a problem with west Delhi. “It has to do with the way this part of the city is laid out. I cannot just walk around here. I'll have to enter a mall or a cafe to feel safe, and I find that absolutely depressing.” This evening Michelle Sanya Tirkey, a gender studies student in B. R. Ambedkar University, is hanging out by a used bookstall, which isn’t in west Delhi. She agrees to be a part of the Proust Questionnaire series in which citizens are nudged to make “Parisian parlour confessions”, all to explore our distinct experiences. Your favorite virtue or the principal aspect of your
City Monument – Unknown Grave, Mehrauli Monuments by The Delhi Walla - July 22, 20220 Grave beauty. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is like somebody’s dense handwritten journal lying open on the table, with a twig of leaves serving as bookmark. This sculpted piece of marble, adorned with a tiny neem fragment that must have drifted down from the tree above, has to be one of Delhi’s most exquisite graves. It doesn’t belong to any sultan or famous fakir though — actually, it is difficult to ascertain who was buried here. Said to have been built centuries ago, the grave is ensconced in a nameless graveyard, no longer in use. The enclosure lies in a deserted corner of the Sufi shrine of Hazrat Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki in South Delhi’s Mehrauli. You may find the
City Hangout – Asaf Ali’s Statue, Near Dilli Gate Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - July 22, 20220 A place like no other. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This day, last year: hundreds of pigeons around freedom fighter Asaf Ali’s statue. This day, this year: hundreds of pigeons still around the same statue. Yet, the place has been transformed. This can become one of the loveliest little places to lounge in the entire national capital region. It is still not open, so nothing official about this sneak preview. Earlier, the plaza at the head of Asaf Ali Road was impossible to penetrate. Every inch of the land was occupied by pigeons. All through the day, people would get grains from the grain hawkers sitting by the statue, and feed the fat birds. The scene was reminiscent of Roman vomitoriums