City Neighbourhood – Chatta Jaam Beg, Old Delhi Hangouts Life by The Delhi Walla - December 9, 20240 The Walled City encyclopaedia [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] No horses here any longer. Haven’t been seen for a long, long time. They aren’t even part of anybody’s lived memory. The horses have become a legend, and so have their “tabele,” the stables. But during the Badshah raaj, when the Mughals commanded the empire from the Red Fort, this Old Delhi street had tabele for horses. That must had also been a time when Jaam Beg hadn’t yet become a myth. Today, the man who gave his name to the street is remembered only as mister somebody who was VIP enough to have got the honorific title of ‘beg.’ Like any classical Purani Dilli street, Chatta Jaam beg in Tiraha
City Neighbourhood – Kucha Chelan, Old Delhi Hangouts Walks by The Delhi Walla - December 1, 2024December 1, 20240 The Walled City encyclopedia [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This Old Delhi street should be called Gali Good Luck. The street has Good Luck Tailors, Good Luck Tea Stall and Good Luck Hair Salon. The place is actually Kucha Chelan, and it actually has a very bad luck past. Following the 1857 uprising, the avenging British massacred 1,400 citizens here. Those martyrs must have comprised some of Old Delhi’s wealthiest gentry, for Kucha Chelan’s name is said to have evolved from Chehel Amiran, forty wealthy men. Today, no sign of that violent history exists. All is serene along the lane, the serenest aspect being a small gurudwara. Every morning, an elderly lady is seen seated crosslegged beside the holy
City Library – Russian House, Feroze Shah Road Hangouts Library by The Delhi Walla - November 25, 20240 Delhi's most enigmatic library. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Here pin-drop silence marinates amidst thousands of books. The library at Russian House, a Russian government enterprise, is in Delhi’s heart, but the third-floor windows show nothing of the city, except for the sky, and the treetops of Feroze Shah Road. Most books are in Russian, and almost all are beautifully produced hardbacks. The mere act of holding a random volume is like drifting closer to an otherwise remote world. This is easy to explain. The icy frozen Russia is geographically closer to Delhi than Western Europe, but London-Paris appear more accessible to us than Moscow-Saint Petersburg. Maybe because the former cities are more thoroughly enmeshed into our popular culture. Whatever,
City Hangout – Kucha Pati Ram, Old Delhi Hangouts Walks by The Delhi Walla - November 16, 20240 Line of beauty. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] When not much subsists of a city’s material past—after the elderly people are gone, after the things are broken and scattered—what happens of the place? Then, it likely resembles Old Delhi. The Walled City lanes are littered with timeworn wreckage. One street, though, is stubbornly holding onto an unusually substantial portion of architectural heritage, and it is remarkably well-preserved. The façades of Kucha Pati Ram residences remain dense with quaint balconies, windows and doorways. Kucha traditionally referred to any lane where the dwellers exercised the same occupation. And Pati Ram… well, neither shoe repairer Sonu, nor nankhatai seller Heera Lal, or chai stall owner Praveen, could tell anything precise about the
City Hangout – Kamla Nagar, North Delhi Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - November 7, 20240 A town in the city. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Eyes darting around wildly, as if desperate to soak in all the sights along all the paves. Kamla Nagar in north Delhi always lifts the mood with its wondrously kaleidoscopic disposition. Especially catchy is the buzzy road that cuts through the main market. The multifaceted universe is inevitably youthful due to its nearness to Delhi University colleges. But it doesn’t have the alienating vibes of an age-arrogant college campus. Instead, it exudes the calmly pace of a small town bazar where everyone feels welcome, irrespective of age or style. (So appropriate then that the place-name ends with the Hindi word for town). The tick to best experience the Nagar is
City Hangout – Sunday Book Bazar, Mahila Haat Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - November 2, 2024November 2, 20240 Evolution of a place. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Place-names are frequently deceptive. Logically speaking, it ought to be a village market for female artisan-entrepreneurs. It actually is Ali Baba’s cave for secondhand books. Opened atop a basement car park in 2012, Mahila Haat overlooks the Walled City’s vanished walls on Asaf Ali Road. The planners had expected it to be Delhi’s second Dilli Haat, that much-loved Disneyland of art-and-craft stuff. The good intentions failed, and Mahila Haat stayed deserted and squalid. Its kismet turned in 2019, when it was chosen as the site for the capital’s iconic Sunday Book Bazar, which earlier would unfold every week on the pavement of nearby Daryaganj. (The new location proved far superior due
City Hangout – Cotton Market, Old Delhi Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - October 20, 2024October 21, 20240 Unique bazar. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] This is easy. The logic behind the name is no rocket science. Old Delhi’s Cotton Market owns its two words because it is a market that stocks cotton-made stuff, like quilts and mattresses and—per shop no. 15--“all kinds of shaneel, Jaipuri bedsheet, razai, gadda, pillow, coirform, mattress, quilt sheet, etc).” The place is spectacular in terms of sights. Parts of it offer a long sprawling view of the Jama Masjid, a perspective of the centuries-old monument not seen from anywhere else. The unassuming market is actually a stretch connecting Urdu Bazar to Chandni Chowk. The shops also sell carpets and suitcases. All of these cram up both sides of the narrow lane, and in
City Hangout – Gates of Lodhi Garden, Central Delhi Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - September 24, 20240 Five ways of seeing the park [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It has many monuments, lawns, trees, flowers, birds, butterflies, ducks and also many dogs. Each of these aspects of Lodhi Garden has been chronicled on these pages. Except for one additional aspect. Most Delhi parks don’t have as many entry points, but that’s not what makes the numerous gates of Lodhi Garden unique. The huge garden is so full of dramatically different picturesque sights, that each gate presents a distinct perspective of the park. Much like a kaleidoscope in which every turn shows something new. Lodhi Garden has twelve gates, out of which 5 are open to visitors. Others stay shut, such as the beautiful gate no. 10 that
City Hangout – Masjid Udyan, Gurgaon Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - September 18, 2024September 18, 20240 Notes from a park [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] No hint of flowers or grass. The damp mossy ground is instead littered with browned leaves, empty tobacco sachets, discarded paper cups, plastic spoons and beedi stubs. Even so, Masjid Udyan is intense. Facing the Jama Masjid in Gurugram’s Sadar Bazar, the public park used to be bare, forever exposed to the grey sky, but now it is crisscrossed with young shade-giving trees. Of course, the massive peepal is a beautiful exception. It has been here for a long time. A foundation plaque beneath the graceful giant dates the park to September, 1975. This warm afternoon, an elderly man is seated under the sheltering peepal, eating rookhi rotis. There is also a woman
City Hangout – G20 Relic, M-Block Market, GK II Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - September 9, 20240 A new souvenir of times past. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Two white butterflies are flying over countries and continents, but are totally oblivious to the grand geography. They now pass over the Indian Ocean, gradually turn towards Northern Africa, and head to southern Europe. The butterflies are chasing each other over a map of the world, here at the public park in south Delhi’s M Block Market, in Greater Kailash 2. The world map came up a year ago, as part of a much larger installation to mark the G20 summit that opened in Delhi this day last year. In a city of monuments and limitless ruins, the G20 setup looks like one more relic of the capital’s multi-layered history.