City Neighbourhood – Kucha Baqaullah Khan Hangouts Walks by The Delhi Walla - July 27, 20240 One of the two brothers. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Once upon a time there were “do bhai”— Rohilla Khan and Baqaullah Khan. Both brothers were Mughal nobles. The assertion is forcefully made by a handful of men idling this humid evening at Kucha Baqaullah Khan. (The same claim was asserted one afternoon months ago by a few men idling at the neighbouring Kucha Rohilla Khan—a street already featured on The Delhi Walla). The entry to Baqaullah’s blind alley is like a hole in the wall, sandwiched between the hole-in-the-wall shops of Chitli Qabar Bazar. Fortunately, the green-bordered signboard bearing the street’s name is easily discernible. The other marker is the huge black tank perched atop the tricoloured gateway. Inside, the unpainted
City Neighbourhood – Hamdadrd Chowk, Old Delhi Hangouts Landmarks Walks by The Delhi Walla - July 27, 20240 Circle of birds. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] This humid afternoon the circular traffic island of Hamdard Chowk on Asaf Ali Road is filled, as always, with hundreds of pigeons. The traffic noise is reaching into the sprawling circle weakened and indistinct. A man in white kurta pajama is slowly walking about the circle, stopping frequently, picking up things from the circle’s surprisingly high platform, and he is putting those things… into his mouth! These are broken pieces of mithai that somebody must have placed for the pigeons, he says. He doesn’t give reasons for consuming these himself. ‘Partner in pain’ in Urdu, the chowk’s name comes from the facing headquarters of Hamdard Laboratories At night, the traffic circle’s surroundings--the
City Library – Author Qurratulain Hyder Archives, Jamia Millia Islamia University Library by The Delhi Walla - July 17, 20240 A room of her own. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Aakh ki thandak—cooling comfort to the eye. This is the meaning of her Arabic name, though friends called her Ainee Apa. Qurratulain Hyder herself also preferred this nickname. Her Anna Karenina has ‘Ainee’ on the opening page. All the books she owned are scrawled with it. (Except for Nehru’s A Bunch of Old Letters —it has only Jawaharlal Nehru’s autograph.) Among the greatest writers in the subcontinent, the material remains Qurratulain Hyder left behind after her death in 2007 are lying preserved in Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University. Her presence in the gallery is so palpable you half-expect the novelist to tap on your shoulder. Qurratulain Hyder’s vast collection of books
City Hangout – Live Music, Connaught Place Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - July 16, 2024July 16, 20240 Killing us softly with their songs [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Late evening. A young man is strumming a guitar in a Connaught Place (CP) corridor, crooning the Ankit Tiwari love song Teri galiyaan. A small crowd swiftly gathers—see photo. Some start snapping the singer-busker. One woman is tapping her foot, in sync with the beats. Elsewhere in CP, an elderly man is often seen playing flute in an Inner Circle corridor, beside a handwritten placard stating: “I’m not a beggar. I just want to touch your soul with the help of music.” Live music in CP is a long-time tradition. The colonial-era commercial district was a jumble of pubs and restaurants as much in the 1960s as it is in the
City Food – Monsoon Pakoda, Around Town Food by The Delhi Walla - July 12, 2024July 12, 20240 Rainy day fries [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] When it rains, one feels for the Minto Road bridge. The central Delhi underpass almost always gets flooded. Truth be told, extreme weather trends has robbed Delhi monsoon of its traditional charm. Anyways, for years the pakoda cart in Gurugram railway station has strived for an idyllic July-August experience, bonding itself to the trinity of train travel, spicy deep-fried tidbits and the barsat. The platform’s snack cart has a long record of rustling out punchy green chilli pakodas.The green chilli would tend to be long and slim—these are the ones that are truly hot!--but the fried batter coating would bring down the heat a notch or two. That said, even a most average
Mission Delhi – Manoj, Pragati Maidan Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - July 11, 20240 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Its construction began in May 1639, it was completed almost a decade later in April 1648–Old Delhi’s Lal Qila, the seat of the Mughals. This Lal Qila is in New Delhi and it is getting completed in mere two days. Manoj is giving finishing touches to the monument. “I am,” he says matter-of-factly, responding to a query if he is an artist. Attired for the intensely humid afternoon in workday shorts and T-shirt, the Faridabad dweller’s current studio happens to be a roadside pave near Bharat Mandapam in Pragati Maidan. The canvas is an outer wall of a busy underpass, the road underneath echoing with the steady
Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Arif Ali, Central Delhi Delhi Proustians by The Delhi Walla - July 10, 20240 Into a newsstand person's soul. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] If not busy mending torn clothes, he might be sighted playing ludo with friends (see photo) on his shop counter in Old Delhi’s Bulbuli Khana. A Farash Khana dweller, the venerable Arif Ali is a “rafu master,” that disappearing breed of neighbourhood tailors who specialise in the art of darning. This slow-moving humid afternoon, he agrees to become a part of our Proust Questionnaire series, in which citizens are nudged to make “Parisian parlour confessions”, all to explore our distinct experiences. Your favorite qualities in a person. Making necessary sacrifices to ensure good education for the children. What do you appreciate the most in your friends? He should agree with whatever I say. Your main
City Food – Poet’s Mangoes, Ghalib’s Tomb Food by The Delhi Walla - July 8, 2024July 8, 20240 To Mirza with love [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Mubarak, season’s most idyllic scene just sighted. A mango cart parked right beside the tomb of Delhi’s greatest poet—see photo. It is a truth universally acknowledged that nobody can fully crack Delhi without understanding Mirza Ghalib. And nobody can fully crack Mirza Ghalib without understanding his passion for mangoes. Luckily, the freely accessible library of Ghalib Academy stands next to the poet’s mazar in central Delhi, and one of the many Urdu books in the metal shelves—Sharah Diwan-e-Ghalib by Dr Qazi Sayeduddin—contains a vast oeuvre of kissa-kahani from Ghalib’s life and works. A few of those stories vividly tell of the poet’s utmost devotion to our king of fruits. (Statutory recommendation: best to
City Life – Ramjas Path, Daryaganj Life Walks by The Delhi Walla - July 7, 2024July 7, 20240 Of silence and song [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The lane is steeped in ‘pin drop silence,’ just the thing the teachers at the school ahead might expect from their students. The short Ramjas Paath in Daryaganj is lined with a handful of enormous pilkhans, whose thick brown branches gently spread upon the lane, colonising the upper altitudes, hiding much of the sky from the earth. A pair of vessels are hanging from a branch high up in the air; one of those is said to filled with grains for the birds, another is filled with water. Aam Panna seller Yameen shows a rope-and-pulley apparatus equipped around the tree’s wrinkled trunk. “It brings down the vessels to our level for
City Hangout – Gali Teeke Wali, Old Delhi Hangouts Walks by The Delhi Walla - July 7, 20240 Doorway lane. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sixty-paces-long, the narrow Gali Teeke Wali is a tributary of the much larger Gali Choori Walan. The lane is stamped with a few “car body parts” shops, along with a few printing presses. Sometimes a sweating labourer is seen hauling a mountainous stack of paper sheets on his bent back. This afternoon, the primary sound is of a printing press machine’s rhythmic rattle. People popping up infrequently along the street don’t have much to say on its name except that “the naam has passed down from the old times.” A woman in black burqa suggests that the lane must have originally been the “address of Brahmins who would apply sacred teeka on their