City Hangout – Half Price Bookstore, Select Citywalk Mall
Affordable trash. [Text and picture by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some of Delhi’s best independently owned book stores (Fact & Fiction, the Bookshop, New Book Depot) don’t encourage discounts. Concessions kill the small players. The 31-year-old Bookworm, a landmark store in…
City Hangout – Shankar’s International Dolls Museum, Near ITO Crossing
People of the world. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] For anyone curious about the world, its civilization and its people, this is a trip more affecting than your grandfather’s stacks of National Geographic magazines. Set up by cartoonist…
City Hangout – Rewari Steam Loco Shed, Haryana
80 km from Delhi. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Half a century ago, it had 85 steam engines and a staff of 500. Today it has nine engines and a staff of 25. The Rewari Steam Loco Shed,…
City Hangout – Flipside Café, Hauz Khas Village
A cultivated casualness. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] No. 7. First Floor, at Hauz Khas Village (2651 6341) – Taken in by its faux-bohemian spirit, some consider Hauz Khas Village a John Lennon song. People come here to…
City Hangout – Shahpur Jat Village, South Delhi
A designer getaway. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] In Shahpur Jat (SPJ) village, south Delhi, the turbaned elders smoke hookahs in street corners while primped mannequins gaze out through glass windows. More than a hundred stores – from…
City Hangout – The Art Galleries of Hauz Khas
The 14th century village as an art destination. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Besides its haunting ruins, Hauz Khas Village in south Delhi is known for its designer stores, curio shops, two South Indian specialty restaurants, one lounge-bar…
City Hangout – The New Landmarks, Connaught Place
Four hours in Delhi’s premier shopping district. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Connaught Place, aka CP, Delhi’s Colonial-era shopping district, is changing rapidly. Old landmarks are giving way to new. Under extensive renovation in 2010, CP is returning…
City Hangout – A Booklover’s Connaught Place
The definitive Delhi guide for book lovers. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] The book is not dead. Not in Connaught Place, central Delhi’s colonial-era shopping district. One winter afternoon, The Delhi Walla visited all the bookshops in the…
City Hangout – India Habitat Center, Lodhi Road
Delhi’s swish space. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Little must have Joseph Allen Stein, the American architect of India Habitat Center (IHC), imagined that the six restaurants, four galleries, one auditorium, amphitheatre and a sprawling atrium in his…
City Hangout – Coffee House, Majnu Ka Tila
The new-age Lhasa. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] House No. 39. Basement at New Tibetan Camp, Majnu Ka Tila – For five decades, Majnu Ka Tila (MT) is where Delhiites go to experience the Capital’s Little Lhasa. A…
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