Life with books. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] She woke up very early in her Gurgaon condo the morning after prime minister’s first speech on janta curfew, the one that preempted the much-longer coronavirus-ridden lockdown. By 6.15 am, she had hit the Western Peripheral Expressway, not stopping her silver Honda Amaze anywhere, heading straight to Chandigarh. With her two daughters, sets of six clothes for each, plastic gloves, a bank cheque book, and Kristin Hannah’s novel True Colors. Shalini Bahadur was quitting the Millennium City in the Greater Delhi Region to spend the forthcoming lockdown at her parents’ sprawling house in Chandigarh’s Sector 9. “I wanted to look after mom and dad, and also to make sure the girls had a

Finding Geeta. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sikander Aaquil’s work has come to a grinding halt. A building contractor, he can no longer oversee the construction of private houses — though he does spend some time every day looking after his regular labourers, now out of work. Besides keeping them supplied with necessary cash, he is also taking care of their daily food rations. But he must keep to his bungalow, here in Gurgaon’s New Palam Vihar in the Greater Delhi Region. And let’s face it: A building contractor used to engaging with a variety of people throughout the day can find it monotonous to just hobnob with his small family 24/7, no matter how much he loves them. Fortunately, Mr

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Yes, finally discovered! A Delhi library with arguably the best collection dealing with Shakespeare. Not at the British Council. Nor even the ample library of Karol Bagh’s Rupin Walter Desai who founded a journal devoted to Hamlet way back in 1979. In fact the most jealous-worthy Shakespeare library is happily housed in a Hauz Khas apartment that belonged to the Maharaja of Kapurthala. It’s now occupied by Jonathan Gil Harris, the former president of the Shakespeare Society of India. A professor of English in Ashoka University, his study is literally crammed with some of the best books published on Shakespeare in recent times. This late afternoon, the New Zealand-born scholar is perched on

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Here you shall find Milan Kundera’s classic novel personally inscribed by him. Also the first edition of Midnight Children, duly signed by Salman Rushdie. Krishna Prasad Jain, 80, owns this precious stuff. He lives with his wife Madhu in a bungalow in south Delhi’s Vasant Vihar. A retired professor of physics, he has never counted the books in his library. “I don’t know how many I have,” the professor says. “I can’t even make a wild guess… never thought of that.” Responding to a query, he says, “It’s an eclectic collection—physics, history, philosophy... my mother was interested in philosophy… there are also books on gardening, biographies, memoirs, and then there is Proust.” Mr Jain first

A city secret. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Many of the shelves are simply empty, but occasional visitors do turn up anyway at the Information Center Library tucked away in the city’s busy Outer Circle in the colonial-era Connaught Place. This state-owned library—and so beautiful---opened in 1955 with high expectations. Until a few years ago the facility was filled with visitors and journalists discussing politics or poring over the many newspapers and magazines. Nowadays quite a few of those publications no longer arrive, but old newspapers are thoughtfully preserved in handbound volumes. Aficionados of print editions would appreciate this. Magazines and journals collected over the years are also crammed in similar bound volumes. A half-hidden chamber actually has metal closets with hand-operated lockers that

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Here’s just the right place to while away a long horrible summer afternoon—for free. But, to be fair, the books at British Council also tempt, with a pleasing collection of writers from the vast English-speaking world. As you’d expect, there are two entire shelves devoted to Shakespeare. Perhaps more surprising is the impressive poetry section featuring works by almost all major non-American contemporary poets (there’s a vast collection of handsome poetry paperbacks published by the famed Faber & Faber). Many patrons seem to be content tapping on their laptops rather than inspecting the book shelves themselves. You may particularly enjoy settling down with the very latest print editions of leading British newspapers. There’s probably no other

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some books are like family heirlooms passed down from one generation to another. And then they get lost and are washed ashore on some other coast. Such is the case with a tattered hardbound volume in Abdul Sattar’s custody. An elderly scholar living in Old Delhi’s Pahari Imli, he recently came into the possession of a book with handwritten recordings of a family’s most private moments — deaths, births and weddings. The book is an old copy of the Bible... in Urdu. “A nephew acquired it in Punjab and gifted it to me,” says Mr Sattar, gently lifting the exquisitely carved old wooden box inside which the book lies. The box itself deserves a

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla kinda knows what diplomats do for a living. But what happens after they retire? In the case of TCA Raghavan, he’s managed to write two books so far. But despairs about his bookshelves. They’re crammed to the gills. Thousands of books. A nice problem, perhaps, but a dilemma that forever haunts book hoarders. “I really did severely cull my books when we moved here,” explains Mr Raghavan, who’s last been High Commissioner to Pakistan. “I’ve made an effort and have even switched to Kindle:” Going digital evidently isn’t solving the problem at all. His wife Ranjana Sengupta is a publishing house editor who naturally has a sizeable book collection of her own, here in

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Happy disorder. Viable anarchy. Enticing mishmash. Call it what you want, but the fact remains that finding a book in her private library is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Her bibliophilic mess gets even more delectable when you notice that books written by vernacular Indian authors are piled amid English ones. On the drawing room shelf, for instance, Mahasweta Devi is stacked beside Albert Camus. Rahi Masoom Raza is on the bedside table. Zadie Smith is sitting beside the mirror. The Delhi Walla is at Manisha Saluja’s home in southwest Delhi’s Inderpuri. An assistant professor in Delhi University’s Maitreyi College, Ms Saluja, 34, lives with her husband, a young daughter and

A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla is in the private study of Justice Leila Seth, who died four months ago (5 May 2017). This quiet room, redolent with memory, “was her heart and head,” explains daughter Aradhana. A film-maker and photographer, she fondly recalls her mother’s expansive reading tastes. They spill over genres as we scan the shelves, covering the entire gamut from John Grisham to Mulk Raj Anand. We’re joined briefly by Leila Seth’s husband Prem, entering the study after a very long period. He sits down for a few minutes and then leaves, uttering not a single word. “It was really mum’s space, you know, with absolutely all the books she’s ever read,” says Aradhana. As