The death of a scholar. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] He had many friends, but the closest had to be the French-style cap, the beret, that would at times be lying plopped up on his head, as if it were eavesdropping on his restlessly overzealous intellectual pursuits. Indeed, you would always see him writing, reading, and thinking; though just before going to sleep at night he would tune in to sad Hindi film songs of yesteryears in the memory of his youth’s failed love. Having retired years ago from “government service,” Abdul Sattar was every inch a scholar, and his great subject was his beloved Old Delhi—its old buildings, its Urdu language, its poets, its chroniclers. He died