City Landmark – Notary Clerks’ Cubicles, Asaf Ali Marg
A Chekhovian world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] 7 am. Tables are being put out, chairs are being unfolded. Along the corridor where the pedestrians walk. And also along the roadside. It is like a pavement cafe opening…
City Landmark – Lonely Planet Afghanistan, Delhi’s Book Bazar and Bhogal
Book and land. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] You are so wrong if you believe that Delhi’s Sunday book bazaar is dispensable. That place is like a gigantic public library whose used books are oftentimes precious souvenirs of…
City Landmark – Face of Stoicism, Anand Vihar
A portrait in acceptance. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] To be emotionally resilient to misfortune. To accept the moment as it presents itself. If you can be this, then you’re a stoic person. You may dig deeper by…
City Landmark – Jamun Tree, Connaught Place
Season’s sight. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The ground looks like a fresh battlefield, splattered with blood stains, slippery with hundreds of used bullets. The blood isn’t red, but purple. And the bullets are actually jamuns. They have…
City Landmark – Backpackers’ Hostel, Paharganj
The pre-pandemic scrawls. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The white walls are covered with handwritten scrawls in Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, French, German, Arabic, Portuguese, Thai, Italian, and English. There are drawings too — a woman’s face, a…
City Obituary – Appetite German Bakery, Paharganj
Death of an icon. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The tables and chairs are gone. The cake counter is gone. The kitchen at the back is gone. One of Delhi’s quirkiest hang-outs has become history. Appetite German Bakery,…
City Landmark – Blue Wall, Roshan Pura
The Roshan Pura blues. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] This blue can never be perfectly rendered in a photograph. The shade is that fragile. This afternoon, as you stand in front of it, the colour seems to be…
City Landmark – Udhmi Ram’s Shoe Repair Stall, Green Park
A longtime destination. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is back. As the lockdown eases, shoe repairman Udhmi Ram has returned to his pavement stall in Green Park Market. “I’m opening after one whole month,” he says, sitting…
City Landmark – Unknown Grave, Near Humayun’s Tomb
A roadside resting place. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It lies by the roadside, looking abandoned, ringed by weedy bushes and by hints of all sorts of litter and hidden lives crawling within. This striking-looking stone grave, in…
City Landmark – Shama Building & Shama Family, Asaf Ali Marg & DLF Phase 1
A literary icon. [Archival photos belongs to Ali Ahmed Dehlvi and Vaseem Ahmed Dehlvi, text and other photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The building has lost its colour. A tree is growing out of the balcony. What rescues it from…
Recent Comments