City Home – Late Scholar Abdul Sattar’s Room, Pahari Imli
The room lives on. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is gone, lying buried in Dilli Gate cemetry, but his packed bookshelves are in their appointed places. His mattress and pillows, too. The angle the afternoon sunlight is…
Mission Delhi – Muhammed Asif, Ghalib Academy Library
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] This moment, the young man in white kurta-pajama is poring upon a book. This moment, he is scrawling on a pad. Now, he is thoughtfully…
City Life – Summer Refugees, Somewhere in Delhi
Life in the heat wave. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] White hot noon. The road is deserted, here in this summertime spot of the megapolis. A group of men is huddled under a pavement tree, along with two…
City Life – Gali Chamre Wali Part 1, Old Delhi
Life of a lane. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Tak tak tak tak. An elderly man in an extra-maheen white kurta pajama is walking extremely slowly into the narrow gali. His metal walker is tap-tap-tapping the dusty ground…
City Season – Amaltas at Night, Around Town
Angels of the darkness. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] 8pm, a roadside close to the Rose Garden, Sector 15 Part 1, Gurgaon: Gilded petals stranded in mid-air. These are Amaltas’s golden-yellow blossoms at night. The tree itself is…
City Food – Nafees Bhai’s Bel Sherbet Stand, Gali Sui Walan
A hyoerlocal icon. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Evergreen Sweet House has been a Green Park Market icon since 1963. Jama Masjid too hasn’t budged from its Old Delhi GPS since 1656. Ditto for the derelict Kaman Sarai…
City Obituary – Book Man Ramesh Chandra Jain, Ansari Road & Gurgaon
Passing of a book man. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] His bookstore rarely pops up in cool slick Instagram stories.. But then venerable scholars are not known to be social media savvies. And they are the exalted ones…
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Rajesh Kumar, Indian Coffee House
The parlour confession. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Buzzy, affordable, unpretentious, class-transcending, iconic, and unique to the megapolis. The Indian Coffee House, established in 1957, at Mohan Singh Place. A living landmark here is the cheery-chatty head bearer Rajesh Kumar, a…
City Neighbourhood – Pahari Bhojla, Old Delhi
‘Hood on the hill. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The congested mohalla of Pahari Bhojla is nestled about a pahari, a hill, and is said to have been the hideout of Bhojla daku, back when the Walled City…
City Monument – Jagannath Temple, Hauz Khas Road
Vision in white. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Amid acres of dusty brown ruins, rises an apparition in spotless white. This afternoon, Sree Jagannath Mandir is looking like an edifice of ice. The only notable interruption to its…
Recent Comments