Ice, its long form. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Artist-types always crave to turn life’s ordinary experiences into something sublime. There are also those who stoically labour through their profession, without realising that they too are a part…
More than just a Millennium City. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The complexity of things—the things within things—just seems to be endless, nothing is easy, nothing is simple. So said Alice Munro, the Nobel prize winning author who…
A writer’s city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Happy Birthday, Ruskin Bond. The much-loved author turned 90 on Sunday. Although the hill station of Landour in Mussoorie has been Ruskin Bond’s home since 1964, he would routinely travel…
Dispatch from 40 plus degrees. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Amid the ongoing heatwave-like conditions, thousands of our fellow citizens lack the choice of sheltering themselves from the dangerous afternoon sun. They are obliged to carry on with…
The tamarind hill. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The love song from our grandfathers’ time is streaming out from a window atop the grocery of “Shadab ki dukan.” Up there is Bhai Majid’s “embroidery ka karkhana.” The hard-at-work…
City arbor. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] While wading through a dense jungle, a slight opening of tree leaves abruptly reveals a tantalising glimpse of another world—a tower in progress, 22 floors! See photo. The tower is actually…
The unseen side of Sunday Book Bazar. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sunday tends to be most special for Delhi’s booklovers. They head to the Sunday Book Bazar, which every week gets crammed with thousands of random books….
His silent music. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sitting with legs crossed, head tilted, moustache neatly trimmed and twirled, smiling beatifically, he is playing his accordion, the bellows of the instrument fanned out to their utmost extremity. No…
The upper floor saudade. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The bazar is cinematic in a flamboyant Old Delhi way. A jumble of bakeries and bone-setting clinics, groceries and pharmacies, meat shops and chai shops, appended with residential side-alleys….
One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sun sets every evening in Connaught Place (CP). But the sun refuses to set in CP’s Sunny Guest House. More than fifty years old, the…
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