City Food – Sitaram’s Jaljeera Cart, Sadar Bazar
Taste of a shifting time. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment. Some writer said that. It perhaps implies that what we are seeing in front of…
City Life – Bougainvillea Pavement, Chelmsford Road
Losses and gains. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The long drought has ended. The world is pink again, to an extent. This pavement section on a Chelmsford Road lane was among Delhi’s most beautiful spots due to a…
City Life – “Pandrah Agust” Independence Day, Old Delhi
The I-day. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] You are to be pitied if you live in Gurugram, or Ghaziabad, or Noida, or even in superposh Jorbagh. Because on Independence Day, the luckiest people in the country are those…
Mission Delhi – Iffat Zarrin, Gali Hakimji Wali
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] She is “tanha.” Alone. “I try to look for solitude in my tanhai,” murmurs Iffat Zarrin. As patriarchal Old Delhi’s only published women poet, her…
City Food – Ushop Veg Spl. Thali, Manipur
A food stall in Dilli Haat. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The tables are empty, though it is lunchtime. Manipur is one of the many food stalls in Dilli Haat craft bazar, where each eatery in the food…
City Walk – Faseel Road Part 1, Old Delhi
Path by the wall. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The dictionary meaning of the Persian word Faseel is ‘qile ki diwar,’ the fort wall. Once the entire Old Delhi was gheraoed by a 5.5 miles-long city wall, punctuated…
City Life – Infrastructure Workers, Sarai Kale Khan
Capital builders. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The airy space high up between the two gigantic plinths is crisscrossed into a maze of grids, the kind printed in a school student’s maths notebook. From a distance, these grids…
City Hangout – Masjid Udayan, Gurgaon
Let us praise unremarkable places. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Picturesque places thrill the senses. Please also give a chance to plain places. Hosting scenes of unremarkable everyday life, they too can make a deep impact. Such is…
City Neighbourhood – Changing World, Haveli Azam Khan
Going with the wind, coming with the wind. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The stately sheesham door looked sufficiently venerable to be a tangible link to some unrecorded past. It is gone, replaced by a metal shutter. The…
City Food – Tea Places, Gurugram
Chaigram. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] A longtime chai place in Gurugram has been lying shut for 20 days. Showing his carefully preserved original copy of the municipal corporation’s “Certificate of Vending,” the stall owner attributes the reason…
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