Home Sweet Home – Abdul Sattar's Dwelling, Ganj Mir Khan

Home Sweet Home – Abdul Sattar’s Dwelling, Ganj Mir Khan

Inside the walls. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Close to midnight, Abdul Sattar is shutting his metal-plating workshop. In a few minutes, the cramped space becomes his bedroom. This suits him fine. His extended family lives just down…

Home Sweet Home - The Polish Ambassador's Residence, Tilak Marg

Home Sweet Home – The Polish Ambassador’s Residence, Tilak Marg

Inside the walls. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Houses of foreign envoys always conjure up images of hushed elegance. The Delhi Walla still remembers the visit to the Australian High Commissioner’s residence in Chanakyapuri a few months ago…

Home Sweet Home - Kamal's Patch of the Pavement, Asaf Ali Road

Home Sweet Home – Kamal’s Patch of the Pavement, Asaf Ali Road

Inside the walls. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] At around 12,000 rupees every month, Kamal makes a living collecting scrap. There’s only one problem. Despite these earnings, Kamal is homeless. On this Sunday morning he awakens to plentiful…

Home Sweet Home - Chacha Jan's Unauthorized Home, Vasundhara

Home Sweet Home – Chacha Jan’s Unauthorized Home, Vasundhara

Inside the walls. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One day his home was there, as always. Today, it’s not there. That unauthorized makeshift dwelling was the only constant in this ever-changing middle-class neighborhood in suburban Vasundhara. Known simply…

Home Sweet Home - Rickshaw Puller Vishwajeet Mondal's Bedroom, Near Jangpura Metro Station

Home Sweet Home – Rickshaw Puller Vishwajeet Mondal’s Bedroom, Near Jangpura Metro Station

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Traffic has slowed to trickle near Jangpura Metro station where two tired rickshaw pullers are calling it a night. Dressed down to their lungis, Bhajan Lal and Vishwajeet Mondal carefully…

Home Sweet Home – Daily Wager's Mansion, Galli Choori Wallan

Home Sweet Home – Daily Wager’s Mansion, Galli Choori Wallan

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] As the eyes adjust to the darkness, The Delhi Walla realizes that the bare walls are of lakhori bricks. The thick columns seem to be hewed out of stones. But,…

Home Sweet Home –  Harinder Sidhu, Australian High Commissioner's Residence

Home Sweet Home – Harinder Sidhu, Australian High Commissioner’s Residence

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] To be a High Commissioner is, well, something. The Delhi Walla mulled this over while visiting the Australian High Commission recently. Amid the lush greenery is a mansion designed by…

Home Sweet Home – Shamim us Din 's Cluttered Room, Gali Mochan

Home Sweet Home – Shamim us Din ‘s Cluttered Room, Gali Mochan

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Old Delhi’s Shamim ud Din loves machinery. So much so that he decided, years ago, that he needed a tiny dark room near the family residence to store it in….

Home Sweet Home – Writer Taslima Nasrin’s Study, Somewhere in Delhi

Home Sweet Home – Writer Taslima Nasrin’s Study, Somewhere in Delhi

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] “Stop bitching. Start a revolution.” “Religion stops a thinking mind.” “Proud to be a feminist.” “Keep your laws off my body.” These stickers grace the room where she is writing…

Home Sweet Home – Novelist Manan Kapoor's Room, Shakti Nagar

Home Sweet Home – Novelist Manan Kapoor’s Room, Shakti Nagar

A whole world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Karl Marx is lying on his shoe rack. Italo Calvino is on his double bed. Federico García Lorca is beside a little guitar. Amitav Ghosh, VS Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Ernest…