Mission Delhi – Sultan, Turkman Gate

One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] He is standing quietly on a stationery scooter. The Delhi Walla approaches him. The scooter is parked in an alley in Turkman Gate, a congested…

City Hangout – Change of Guard, Rashtrapati Bhawan

The Raisina show. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sleekly muscled. Powerful. Well-groomed. These were some of the assertions made in a letter sent by Rashtrapati Bhavan in December 2012. The invitation to The Delhi Walla was for a…

City Reading – The Delhi Proustians XXXV, Mehrauli

A la recherche du temps perdu. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Today is the 35th meeting of The Delhi Proustians, a club for Delhiwallas that discusses French novelist Marcel Proust. Every Monday evening for an hour we read…

City Style – The Classy Delhiwalla, Ring Road

Searching for the stylish. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Delhi Walla saw this man on the Ring Road. He was wearing a blue salwar kurta. His dark-blue jacket was printed with hundreds of delicately shaped green leaves,…

City Video – Nobody Can Love You More, GB Road

Watched by thousands of people. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Penguin India, the publishers of The Delhi Walla’s new book, Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi’s Red Light District, sent me a mail: The video for the book has…

Photo Essay – The Fire, Himalaya House

Tragedy in the morning. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The cold morning was masked in a gray fog of smoke that leapt out of the 15-storey Himalaya House, an office-complex on Kasturba Gandhi Marg, an avenue in Central…

City Secret - Devi Prasad Sadan Dhobi Ghat, Hailey Lane

The world of the washermen. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Oxford dictionary describes a dhobi as “a person whose occupation is washing clothes” and a ghat as “a flight of steps leading down to a river”. Yet…

City Reading – The Delhi Proustians XXXIV, Old Delhi Railway Station

A la recherche du temps perdu. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Today is the 34th meeting of The Delhi Proustians, a club for Delhiwallas that discusses French novelist Marcel Proust. Every Monday evening for an hour we read…

City Moment – Book Launch Ceremony, Matia Mahal

The beautiful Delhi instant. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is about noon. The Delhi Walla enters the home of Haji Miyan and his brother Amir Dehlvi. They live in Matia Mahal, a congested neighbourhood in the Walled…

City Monument – Hindon Rail Bridge, Ghaziabad

The bridges of a Delhi county. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Positioned five miles outside Delhi’s eastern limits, this redbrick railway bridge is in Ghaziabad, a district in Uttar Pradesh. Composed of a series of six 70-feet-wide arches,…