City Hangout – Madras Coffee House, Connaught Place
A place to dissent. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The food is not memorable. The flowers are made of plastic. The walls are painted to a dull shade. The mezzanine floor is locked down. Opened in 1935 by…
City Hangout – Sunday Used-Book Bazar, Daryaganj
Delhi’s biggest second-hand book market. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] There are two kinds of muggles in Delhi. Those who have been to the weekly used-book bazar at Daryaganj and those who haven’t. The first group doesn’t want…
City Hangout – The New Shahpur Jat, South Delhi
The lesser village. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Shahpur Jat Village can never have the strut of the nearby Hauz Khas Village. If optimists believe otherwise, then the closure of Bookwise in November 2013 should clear that up….
City Hangout – Café Lota & Other Such Places, Around Town
Delhi’s artsy cafes. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] There is acres of space between the restaurant tables, making each one its own little universe — art students economize by sharing a few snacks, the NGO activists bemoan the…
City Hangout – Main Bazaar, Paharganj
Sights of the world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Main Bazaar in Paharganj is a clutter of cafés, second-hand book stores and a few atmospheric broken-down mansions. Close to the New Delhi railway station, the bustling district…
City Hangout – Ghalib Academy, H. Nizamuddin Basti
A poetic corner. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Devoted to Delhi’s great poet Mirza Ghalib, it has a museum and a library. Its auditorium regularly hosts gatherings of Urdu poets — sometimes they arrive dressed in old-world costumes…
Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – John Keats, Nehru Park
Poetry in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla arranged to meet English poet John Keats in Nehru Park, a garden in the city’s diplomatic enclave. It was an almost imperceptible autumn morning. The sunshine…
City Hangout – Modern Tea House, Haveli Azam Khan
A sip of the Walled City. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The tea stalls in Mughal-era Old Delhi serve very milky and sweet chai. Modern Tea House, on Haveli Azam Khan, a congested alley off the Chitli Qabar…
City Hangout – Gole Park, Windsor Place
A serene circle. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] You can cross the entire Gole Park in Central Delhi’s Windsor Place in five minutes flat. It is a traffic roundabout. While there are the usual trees, flowers, grass and…
City Hangout – Mapping National Museum, Janpath
Souvenirs of our past. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The National Museum in Central Delhi is a guide to India. Opened in 1960, it has 2, 00,000 exhibits — the older dating back to 2500 BC and beyond….
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