City Life – Two Peepal, Asaf Ali Road Life Nature by The Delhi Walla - May 19, 20240 City arbor. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] While wading through a dense jungle, a slight opening of tree leaves abruptly reveals a tantalising glimpse of another world—a tower in progress, 22 floors! See photo. The tower is actually an upcoming hospital building. The jungle is a central Delhi pave. The thandi foliage belonging to two roadside peepals. Delhi is dry, dusty and smoggy, but against all odds, it harbours 252 species of trees. (New York has 130.) And right now it is the most colourful time of the year in the megapolis, tree-wise. Semal’s red bloom has just ended, and Amaltas is turning golden-yellow with flowers. But today, lets sing in praise of this pair of peepal. The two gigantic trees on
City Home – Bookseller Manish Kapoor’s House, Rohini West Delhi Homes by The Delhi Walla - May 17, 2024May 19, 20240 The unseen side of Sunday Book Bazar. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sunday tends to be most special for Delhi’s booklovers. They head to the Sunday Book Bazar, which every week gets crammed with thousands of random books. The booklovers fish out their favourites and go back home. Some return to a non-reading household, its members already resentful about too many books hijacking too much of the limited space in the house. What of a Book Bazar bookseller? How is his home like? What does his family feel about the books? Step inside bookseller Manish Kapoor’s first-floor home, in north-west Delhi’s Rohini West. Bulky book towers claim half of the drawing room. They are almost touching the ceiling. The room has a
City Landmark – Accordion Man, South Extension I Hangouts Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - May 16, 20240 His silent music. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sitting with legs crossed, head tilted, moustache neatly trimmed and twirled, smiling beatifically, he is playing his accordion, the bellows of the instrument fanned out to their utmost extremity. No music is streaming out though. The whole setup is a statue. The accordion man is installed under a peepal in South Extension I, in a shaded tree-filled plaza outside the underground metro station, gate no. 2. This uncomfortably warm, sunny mid-May evening, a poker-faced citizen is seated beside the accordion man, looking thoughtful. Another citizen is seated on the other side of the accordion man. He too is looking thoughtful. Neither of them shows any curiosity towards the player, as if he
City Monument – Magical Balconies, Kalan Mahal Monuments by The Delhi Walla - May 15, 2024May 15, 20240 The upper floor saudade. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The bazar is cinematic in a flamboyant Old Delhi way. A jumble of bakeries and bone-setting clinics, groceries and pharmacies, meat shops and chai shops, appended with residential side-alleys. That said, the locality possesses something more special. Along a part of the stretch, a short series of most ethereal balconies are strung one after another, as if through a thread. The congested Kalan Mahal is a mahal only in name. Neither are these balconies palatial; they however bear traces of an old architectural style that has become increasingly rare. To be sure, the balconies boast of no significant history, they find no mention in travel books, they are never included in
Mission Delhi – Murari Lal, Sunny Guest House Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - May 14, 20240 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sun sets every evening in Connaught Place (CP). But the sun refuses to set in CP’s Sunny Guest House. More than fifty years old, the upper-floor lodge is a lesser-known but lasting CP institution, continuing to survive even as many places of its kind have shut shop in the colonial-era district. It found a honourable mention in the third edition of Lonely Planet India (1993), then titled India: A Survival Kit. The longtime landmark has its own longtime living landmark—its “room boy,” the venerable Murari Lal (real name: Brij Lal). In his 60s, he has been with the guest house since 1985. “I had come to
City Neighbourhood- Gali Manihar Wali, Old Delhi Regions Walks by The Delhi Walla - May 13, 20240 A Walled City Lane. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] When the Walled City nostalgists muse about its early days, they refer to that long-ago time as “badshahi ke daur mein.” Indeed, it was “during the era of emperors” that almost all the Walled City galliyan and kuche acquired their names. These specific nouns richly tell of the past but rarely of the present, for the world has drastically altered in the historic quarter. The story goes that “badshahi ke daur mein” Gali Choori Walan used to be the street of choori traders. Today, not a single bangle store is here. Same ended up being the fateful kismet of a Choori Walan side-lane. Gali Manihar Wali used to house
City Walk – Rajpur Road & Environs, Civil Lines Walks by The Delhi Walla - May 11, 2024May 13, 20240 Into serene avenues. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The gate is locked. The tree-speckled compound is strewn with dry crackling leaves. The lone man in the stately porch, a guard maybe, makes no answer. Peering over the rusted spokes of the gate it is clear that the bungalow is uninhabited. The arched portals gape forlorn (see photo). This is a surreal scene on Rajpur Road, in north Delhi’s Civil Lines. You ought to consider a long leisurely walk in the precincts primarily to study the bungalow’s dilapidated dignity—not by encroaching into the private space, but by strolling along the pave that goes past the relic. More distractions exist elsewhere in the vicinity, including many other bungalows, excellently preserved. Then there are
City Landmark – Empty Field, Ghaziabad Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - May 10, 20240 Space in suburbia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Something serving as a relief from what is usual—this is a more evocative dictionary meaning of ‘oasis.’ Technically, the word refers to “a green area in desert.” Zila Ghaziabad is no desert. It is full of trees and a river (hello Hindon!). This unique sight however closely matches the idea of an oasis—something rare is interrupting a sequence of customary scenes.. Here, a vast empty lot is managing to survive in the middle of multi-stories, and is marked with two trees. The smaller tree is lit up in yellow. It is Amaltas, whose flowers have lately started to bloom for the summer. Delhi has far superior places to see the Amaltas in blossom,
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Masti Anna Zaman, Somewhere in Delhi Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - May 8, 2024May 8, 20240 Fakeer gets frank. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] He doesn’t have a mobile phone, he doesn’t have a bank account, he doesn’t have an ID card, he doesn’t have much cash either, he says. Even so, he is materialistic after his own worldly fashion—his daily wear includes many necklaces, many finger ornaments. The other principal possession is a knotted cloth bundle containing a couple of chaadars and a food bowl. A native of Kumula village in distant Tripura, Masti Anna Zaman calls himself a fakeer. A barefoot ascetic living in Delhi, he says he has no house. He frequently travels to other cities, performing pilgrimages in mandirs and dargahs, he says. In fact, he collected all his ornaments during
Mission Delhi – Abu Noman, Maujpur Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - May 7, 20240 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] In his 70s, he is frail, he walks with caution, and his advanced years has taken a toll on his hearing. And he flits around the capital in public buses. This elderly man single-handedly sustains a piece of heritage literature. Abu Noman is the editor-publisher of the literary minded Rehnuma-e-Taleem Jadeed. The monthly “risala” (journal) in Urdu was founded by Master Jagat Singh in 1905 in Lahore, eventually moving base to Delhi following the partition. This afternoon, the venerable gent in white kurta-pajama is walking in the hostile May heat, on way to meet one of the magazine’s contributors. He pauses under a shade for