Mission Delhi – Syed Ameen Meer Dehlvi, Chandni Mahal Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - April 28, 2012April 28, 20126 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The cat is observing him. Syed Ameen Meer Dehlvi is helping his wife make tea. The Delhi Walla is standing outside their kitchen. The second-floor house, adjacent to Chandni Mahal police station, looks to the rooftops of Shahjahanabad. It is morning. The neighbors are still sleeping on their terraces. Mr Dehlvi, 77, is talking to his wife in a low voice. Turning to me, he says, “We have two cats... ,” and pointing to his wife, he adds, “she is Tahira. Three of our six daughters are married. All my five sons except the youngest are living elsewhere with their wives. My fath…” Mr Dehlvi’s wife interrupts
Mission Delhi – Tasleem Bibi, Matia Mahal Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - April 4, 2012April 4, 20124 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] She is sitting at the entrance of Syed Rifani mosque, next to Shreen Bhawan sweet shop. It is 6 am. She has just woken up. A dog is lying at her feet. The Delhi Walla meets Tasleem Bibi in Matia Mahal, a bazaar in Shahjahanabad, or Old Delhi. The area with its groceries, bakeries, butcheries, street vendors, doped beggars and cats is Ms Bibi’s home. She is a familiar personality in the market. In the day, she is seen walking the alleys, talking to herself. When she stops to regain her breath – her back is always erect, her face is always expressionless - she looks like
Mission Delhi – Billi, Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - March 15, 2012March 15, 20124 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He gazes down on the marble floor. One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. Eleven minutes. He is immobile. Pilgrims walk around him. A few pat him. One child playfully pulls his tail. One takes his photo with a mobile phone camera. But he remains stock-still. A statue. The Delhi Walla met Billi in the shrine of Hazrat Nizmauddin Auliya, Delhi’s 14th century Sufi saint. His name means ‘cat’ in Hindi. Most people call him Billi. But sometimes he is also called ‘Cat’ and ‘Catty’. His light-brown furry body is marked with black stripes. He has eight whiskers. The inside flaps of his ears have the pale
Mission Delhi – Rakesh Kumar Mishra, Connaught Lane Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - February 18, 2012February 18, 20121 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sitting on his patch of the pavement, he takes a sip of the chai, and again looks at the blur of people walking in front of him. The Delhi Walla met Rakesh Kumar Mishra, 34, a seller of second-hand magazines, novels, and guidebooks at his stall in Connaught Lane, a pedestrian street in Connaught Place, the colonial-era commercial district. “These are old magazines so not many people stop here,” says Mr Mishra, pointing to old issues of Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, GQ, Good Home, Harvard Business Review, Better Homes, and The Caravan carefully arranged against a brick wall. Stacks of Time, Newsweek and National Geographic, a couple of
Mission Delhi – Savitha Sastry, Greater Kailash I Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - January 23, 2012January 23, 20124 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Wearing a flamenco skirt, she enters the practice room at her apartment in south Delhi’s Greater Kailash I, and breaks into the classical movements of Bharatanatyam. Like most artistes, dancer Savitha Sastry believes she is different. Preparing for her new production, Soul Cages, Ms Sastry, 42, tells The Delhi Walla, “Unlike most Bharatanatyam performances, mine will have no romance and no yearning for Krishna or any other god, and trust me, you won’t miss anything.” The classical dance of Tamil Nadu, Bharatanatyam used to be presented by devdasis, the temple courtesans, who seamlessly entwined spirituality with the erotic. In the 19th century, when morality acquired new meanings, the fall
Mission Delhi – Pradip Krishen, Mangarbani Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - January 4, 2012January 4, 20124 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Walking down the hilly slope, he says, “It’s like a little museum of what the rocky past of the ridge must have looked like before swallowed by Delhi.” We are in Mangarbani, a 100-hectare jungle, mostly consisting of Dhau trees, in Aravalli hills, a few miles outside south Delhi and The Delhi Walla is with Pradip Krishen, author of Trees of Delhi, a field guide detailing every tree species found in the city and its vicinity. The forest we are walking through is sacred, the trees are worshipped and there are two temples. The valley has a village of Gujjar herdsmen who believe in a mystic called
Mission Delhi – Muhammed Iftikhar, Jamat Khana Mosque Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - December 17, 2011December 17, 20118 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] 5.25 am. The sky is still black. It’s freezing. Holding the microphone close to his lips, he opens his mouth to recite the azaan, and... time stops. The Delhi Walla is in Jamat Khana, a mosque built on one corner of the sufi shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah. I’m watching Muhammed Iftikhar, a 21-year-old Koran teacher, call the faithful to perform fajr. It’s the first of the five prayers that Muslims enact daily. Mr Iftikhar’s head is shielded from the cold by a white cap and a black-and-white kifayah. His eyes are closed, as a soft, lyrical sound emerges from him. Allahu Akbar [God is great] Lifting
Mission Delhi – 50 Faces, Around Town Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - December 11, 2011December 11, 20113 The faces of Delhi. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] On November 11, 2011, The Times of India carried a news story: Researchers to preserve city's oral history NEW DELHI: Museums have for long recorded the tangible heritage of a city; the bricks and mortar with which the city was built. But can a museum capture the idea of a city, or its memories? Can a museum capture the life of a city in transition? This is precisely what an ambitious new project sets out to do. In a possible first for India, a group of scholars, academicians and researchers from the Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK) at Ambedkar University Delhi have embarked on the Citizen's Memory Project, a digital archive of the
Mission Delhi – Amir Dehlavi, Shahjahanabad Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - November 27, 2011April 9, 20206 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Waving towards Jama Masjid, he says, “It inspires me to write verse.” The Delhi Walla met Amir Dehlavi, 82, at a dilapidated lodge in Shahjahanabad - the area is called Old Delhi by guidebooks. Mr Dehlvi is a manager in the hotel; his younger brother owns it. We are sitting on the roof. An Urdu poet, Mr Dehlavi lives with his five brothers and their families at a house in nearby Chawri Bazaar. His grey beard, brown eyes and furrowed forehead makes him look as ancient as the mosque, which was built by Mughal emperor Shahjahan in 1658. “Ayesha Khatoon died two years ago,” Mr Dehlavi says referring to
Mission Delhi – Hitting the 50th Delhiwalla Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - November 24, 2011November 24, 20118 Profiling one percent of Delhi’s population. [Photos by Solveig Marina Bang; text by Mayank Austen Soofi] One November afternoon in 2011, The Delhi Walla’s attempt to profile one percent of Delhi’s population reached a significant milestone. The Mission Delhi project hit the 50th mark. Like the previous 49 Delhiwallas, the man in Shahjahanabad too was special. Celebrating the occasion, artist Solveig Marina Bang clicked photos as I interviewed and photographed the 50th person. I’d started Mission Delhi in December 2009. Since then I’ve interacted with a variety of people (including two dogs). They were kind to share stories of their lives with a stranger. Each showed me a different Delhi. Thank you. Mission Delhi continues. The 50th Delhi Walla Tell me your life