One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Switching it off, he tucks it inside his white plastic sack. “Radio is my life,” says Ramlal Thakur. In his 40s, Mr Thakur is living beside a brick wall on Mirza Ghalib Street in Nizamuddin Basti, central Delhi, for... nobody in the area knows since which year. Fixed to the same spot, he has become as much a signpost as the nearby tomb of Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib, after whom the street is named. “When I was in school, I would secretly listen to the radio... ” Wearing navy-blue slippers, Mr Thakur is in striped shirt and light brown trousers that looks like as if they haven’t

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Blushing, she covers her smile with the red dupatta and lowers her eyes. Starting to speak, the dupatta falls off her face, which instantly dissolves into soft sobs. The Delhi Walla is with Zubeida Bano. Ms Bano, 72, is painfully shy. Having lived almost all her life behind the purdah, she is not used to interact with men outside her immediate family. Now she has no choice. Ms Bano, along with her disabled sister, is without a home. “We’re from a very good Old Delhi family,” Ms Bano says in sophisticated Urdu, the language of the Walled City elite. “But now we’re ruined, worse than fakeers.”

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] He spreads out his four legs, tries to lift his body but falls flat on the floor. He tries again, and fails. Nameless Kapoor, a 20-days-old cocker spaniel, lives in a bungalow in Kailash Colony, south Delhi. “Since we have no plans to keep him, we are not giving him any name,” Mr Kapoor, owner of a showroom in South Extension, tells The Delhi Walla. I'm in his bedroom. Two years ago, Mr Kapoor bought Chhoti, Nameless’s mother, from a friend in Dehradun, a town 300 km from Delhi. Five yeas ago, his wife, Mrs Kapoor, had purchased Jojo, Nameless’s father, from a pet showroom in

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] His shoulders droop and his belt is clasped loosely around his waist. The Delhi Walla meets Abhay Singh, 86, in Outer Circle, Connaught Place, the city’s Colonial-era commercial district. It is early morning and the office commuters still haven’t invaded the streets. Mr Singh is carrying a leather bag on his back. A Sikh, his turban is pale brown, his beard is white and his shoes are polished black. “Where are you going?” I ask. “To Golf Links. I work with the Red Cross Society,” Mr Singh says, referring to the voluntary humanitarian organization. He has been living in Delhi for 50 years. He grew up in

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] The buses, cars and autos (auto rickshaws) are whizzing by but he is deep into Osama bin Laden. “This is America’s cunning,” says Mritunjay Kumar Tiwari, 34, an auto driver with brown eyes, bushy eyebrows and black moustache. “(US President Barack) Obama wants to pull back his troops from Afghanistan, hoping that Taliban and Pakistan will fight each other to their mutual destruction.” The Delhi Walla is listening to Mr Tiwari in Ring Road, near Moolchnad flyover. He had parked his auto on the pavement and was reading Navbharat Times, a Hindi daily. “I’m actually a Nai Duniya reader, which is priced at Rs 3. The

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] “I want to be buried here,” says Sadia Dehlvi, the author of Sufism: The Heart of Islam. The Delhi Walla meets her at Nizamuddin Chilla, the serene retreat of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, just behind Humayun’s Tomb. It is early morning. Here, the city’s iconic 14th century Sufi saint lived, meditated, and died. Ms Dehlvi walked over from her home in nearby Nizamuddin East, one of Delhi’s most elegant residential districts. Standing amid the shrine’s little graveyard, Ms Dehlvi says, “It is with the mitti (earth) of Delhi that I wish my remains to mingle with.” Her family has lived in the city for centuries. The name Dehlvi

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] He doesn’t talk much. The Delhi Walla is with Editor, a spoilt south Delhi brat with a weakness for Parmesan cheese and chocolate chip cookies. A resident of Nizamuddin East, an up-market neighbourhood dotted with gardens and ruins, Editor owns ‘a nice collar, a nice leash and a serviceable winter coat.’ He also owns two pets—-Sumita and her husband, Vinod Mehta. As the editor of Outlook newsweekly, Mr Mehta often puts in a nugget or two on Editor in Delhi Diary, the popular column on the magazine’s last page. That explains the exposure of a family secret — all three share the same bedroom. Editor snores on

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Gazing at her husband’s photograph, she says, “He taught me a lot.” A pause follows after which 80-something Sakina Mehta continues in her soft voice, “He gave me the courage to go out into the world.” Tyeb, Mrs Mehta’s husband, was one of India’s most celebrated modernist painters. In 2009, he died of a heart attack. Since then Mrs Mehta has been dividing her time between Bombay, where her son lives, and Delhi, the home of her daughter. The Delhi Walla meets her at her daughter’s second floor apartment in Greater Kailash-II. Thanks to a wall-sized glass window, the living room is filled with the clear

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Taking off his yellow T-shirt and flexing his muscles, he says, “I’m eating too much biryani. I need to tone up my body.” The Delhi Walla meets Faisal Khan, 24, at his one-room apartment in Mehrauli, one of the city’s oldest neighbourhoods. Mr Khan, who works as a customer care executive with Lufthansa airlines at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, is however currently less focused on his abs, and more on his broken heart. His girlfriend is refusing to see him. “I’m a Muslim, she’s a Hindu,” he says. “Her parents promised to drink poison the day we would marry.” A native of Rampur, a town in

One of the one per cent in 13 million. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] It’s mid-morning but it doesn’t matter to her. “Time doesn’t exist in my life,” says painter Usha Hooda as she dabs her brush in a heap of burnt sienna. “I’m 54, I think, but I’m not bothered. If you start believing that you could do only this at this age, that’s the end. You can’t limit yourself, especially for someone in my situation. I’ve cancer.” The Delhi Walla is meeting Ms Hooda at her second-floor studio in Hauz Khas Village, a neighbourhood in south Delhi. Commissioned by a collector, she is painting buzkashi horse riders of Afghanistan with a controlled recklessness. Nimbly moving her brush across the