City Season – Annie Ernaux & Bougainvillea Blossoming, Around Town
The face of bougainvillaea. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Now we know the true face of bougainvillea. It has searching eyes, blond hair, a glorious glow, and, on cool evenings, it holds a glass of white wine and…
City Season – Semal Blossoming, Yamuna Bank and Around Town
On the brief spring. [Text and photo Mayank Austen Soofi] You spot the tree in the morning commute. It looks like a thing at the cusp of loveliness. You don’t make much of it. Being busy, you carry on with…
City Nature – Floss-Silk Trees in Blossom, Kamani Auditorium & Elsewhere
Consolation of winter [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The pink of the flower is as boldly surkh (ruddy) as the jama (coat) that Shahjahan is depicted wearing in a famous portrait he commissioned to artist Chitarman. As Delhi-NCR…
City Life – Winter Pollution, Everywhere in Delhi
Mother, daughter and smog. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] This smoggy morning, the throat is wheezy, the eyes are burning, and the head is throbbing to a very mild mysterious ache. Engineering graduate Paridhi Narayan Singh (left) is standing with her…
City Nature – Saptaparni Tree in Bloom, India International Center & Other Places
Devil’s shrub [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Silence, all. Suddenly—plop! Something falls. A bunch of pale green flowers is lying on the ground, here outside an old bungalow in Gurugram’s New Railway Road, close to pavement tailor Muhammed…
City Season – Sky Watching, Gurgaon
Season’s scenes [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The sleek Rapid Metro train is sliding noiselessly along the elevated tracks. The glass windows of the high-rises are gleaming under the noonday sun. And tufts of greying clouds are wafting…
City Season – Cloud Watching, Around Town
Cloud spotter’s guide. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The sky upon a rutty lane in Noida’s Sector 15A splintered into hundreds of cumulus clouds, as if the milk curdled. While in Hazrat Nizamuddin East, the historic Humayun Tomb…
City Season – Monsoon Spaces, Around Town
Rain-drenched city. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] “A little tap on the window-pane, as though something had struck it, followed by a plentiful light falling sound, as of grains of sand being sprinkled from a window overhead, gradually…
City Season – Amaltas in Blossom, Lajpat Nagar
Summer’s gift. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The park has no grass. Tailor “master” Mehmood Alam enters this dull brown earth, lays out a mat towards the west and starts to offer his evening prayers. The scene is…
City Season – Gulmohar Sightings, Gulmohar Park & Elsewhere
Red rising. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This tree has such a bad timing. Each year, as the gulmohar begins to bloom, a more forceful distraction arrives: The bystander gets dazzled by the yellow blossoming of the Amaltas….
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