City Festival - Urs, Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah

April 3, 2010, 6:40 pm

≫ Next: City Interview – Fatima Bhutto, Pakistani Author

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Celebrating the saint's death.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Saturday evening, April 3rd, 2010. The sufis are celebrating the death anniversary of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, Delhi’s 14th century sufi saint. On this day, he married his lover. That is, the saint’s soul united with his beloved, the God. Urs means ‘wedding’ in Arabic.

The dargah’s dome is lit up with electric bulbs. Its courtyard is crowded. After the prayers, there will be nightlong qawwalis. Special food stalls have been set up around the lanes leading to the shrine. Some pilgrims are wearing yellow-colored pointed caps; yellow is the favorite colour of the saint. Families are lounging around the dargah’s several graves. The pankhawallas are fanning the pilgrims. One of them has only one arm.

While the courtyard is packed with worshippers, a few are also sitting inside the main shrine, around the tomb of Hazrat Nizamuddin. This chamber was the meditation room of the saint. Here he died in 1325. Centuries later, his presence is as tangible as it was when he was alive. Every time The Delhi Walla is in the dargah, he feels close to Nizamuddin, and so also close to the God. It's magic.

The evening of the Union

Chinese bulbs

Bright and festive

The sweet boy

Get, set, go

Three believers

Happy family?

The cooling effect

The lovers of Nizamuddin

Have an arm, will fan

Go, get the blessing

Remembering the beloved

The decoration budget

The company of sufis

Close to Him, closer to Him

The Dargah's people

Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya

↧

City Interview – Fatima Bhutto, Pakistani Author

April 5, 2010, 10:11 am

≫ Next: City Landmark - Tughlakabad Fort, Near Badarpur

≪ Previous: City Festival - Urs, Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah

City Interview – Fatima Bhutto, Pakistani Author

The new Daughter of the East.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Fatima Bhutto came to Delhi in April, 2010, for the launch of her memoirs, Songs of Blood and Sword. Granddaughter to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and daughter of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, Ms Bhutto was born in Kabul in 1982. Her father was killed by the police in 1996 in Karachi during the premiership of his sister, Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007. Ms Bhutto maintains that her aunt Benazir was responsible for her father’s killing. She lives with her mother and two brothers in Karachi.

In her interview with The Delhi Walla, Ms Bhutto was sporting blood-red nail polish, as well as a designer handbag and a copy of The International Herald Tribune.

Hello, Ms Bhutto. While we talk, I’ll take your photographs but please don’t look conscious.

Ok. I’ll do my best.

Your third book, Song of Blood and Sword, was launched yesterday evening at Hotel Taj Mahal. How was it?

The audience was very interesting.

'Interesting' is an interesting word.

No, I thought I was going to be in front of strangers. And then I saw some of my former classmates from the University of London. I didn’t know they were coming. So that was great. It was also nice to come across Indians who were curious about Pakistan and wanted to know more about it.

I was also there in the crowd. And I saw people exclaiming when you appeared wearing a saree. A gentleman standing behind me said that you were looking so Indian. It seems many Indians are unaware that Pakistani women also wear sarees. Does such ignorance irritate you?

But the same thing is on other side too, you know. We are so curious about each other but we don’t have access to each other’s countries. Traveling is so hard. It is a lot harder to get information. And so when people said that what a nice Indian dress I was wearing… I said, well, you know my grandmother wore sarees all her life. My mother, too, wear sarees. You see, in Pakistan, women wear shalwar kameezes during the day and sarees in the evening…

…or on special occasions…

Yes, it’s the same thing on both sides of the border. Like here I’m checking my e-mails and my friends in Pakistan are writing to me, saying, “How is India? Is everybody treating you ok? Is everybody being nice to you?” And Delhiites are asking, “How is Pakistan? Are they treating you ok? Are you safe there? ”

Why are Indians worried about how you are being treated in Pakistan?

You know, I think it’s really interesting. People here have reacted really wonderfully to Blood and Sword… they have been really supportive… and protective. I was really touched when a woman (among the audience in the launch) stood up and said, “I hope you are being well-protected in your country.” It was such a kind gesture. I think because we don’t know a lot about each other… we imagine that there is lot of hostile environment on the other side… but when you go to Pakistan or I come to India, people are the same, the language is the same, the culture is the same, so you don’t feel like a stranger. You feel familiar.

Karachi is said to be a dangerous place. I was there in March, 2010, and friends asked me not to go out unaccompanied. One said that the city was under siege. You are a Bhutto. So many members of your family have died in unnatural circumstances. And you live in 70, Clifton, an address that is so famous in Pakistan. Do you feel unsafe? Do you feel you are being constantly watched?

I think there are times… like when you came to Karachi and the city was being sort of edgy. There is a period I write in the book when I was... it was in the 90s when my father was killed. Things then were very scary. You did feel very afraid and gunfire was a normal sound. But I think, unfortunately, it is the condition of all these south Asian big cities that they are sometimes stuck by very paralyzing fear and violence, and then sometimes things are fine. Karachi for me is just one of those cities… at times it’s no big deal for my friends to come over and pick me up and we go off, roam around and it’s fine. But sometimes I can’t do that.

What do you love about Karachi?

Well, I love Sunday bazaar. It’s near Sea View (beach), in Defence (a posh neighbourhood). Every Sunday Itvaar Bazaar pops up at a place where there is nothing all through the week. There the booksellers would come and sell old books…

It’s like Delhi’s Daryaganj Sunday book bazaar?

Maybe… yeah… and not just books. They have toys for kids, T-shirts… you know, it is one of Karachi’s best-kept secrets. Every local knows about it. But if you are visiting the city, there is a chance you may miss it.

You go with friends or family to the Sunday bazaar? You don’t go with security guards? When you are there, is it like, “Hey I’m a Bhutto and I’m in Itwaar Bazaar”?

No, no, no. I think when things are dangerous, one have to be careful. I can’t go every Sunday. I can’t go for long maybe. But you don’t want yourself to be made a prisoner. My mother and my two brothers… we all love Sunday bazaar but we all love it for different things. So my brother Zulfikar, who is a mere 6-years-old, head straight for the toys where he finds all these broken plastic dinosaurs. My other brother is an artist and so looks for all these old art catalogues and art books. My mother looks for handicrafts and I… I go straight for the books and magazines. You get old New Yorkers and Vanity Fairs and National Geographics. And you also get Rs 100 books. I recently got… those great penguin classics with that old orange-striped covers… I also grabbed a first edition Graham Greene. You don’t find such novels any more. Now if you go to firsthand bookshops, you only get Kite Runners and the seven editions of airport books, you know.

Any other place you go to in Karachi?

Then I go to Khadda market for its chaat and dosas. It’s a lovely place and it’s a pity not many people go there.

Why?

I mean it’s like in Delhi. People come here and go to big fancy Italian restaurants or swoon over French cuisine but they miss these small places that have the real food, the good food. So I go there. Then everybody in Karachi have their own DVD walla from whom you pick up the latest films and documentaries...

What about the parties?

(Laughs) I’m pretty boring that way. Because Karachi is such a closed city… because it’s a bit of schizophrenic city… you know, it’s a very large city but you are limited to certain neighbourhoods… so if you go to a party, you see the same 200 people, and after about three of such parties, it gets dull. I much prefer having friends over dinner or having get-togethers or going to friends’ places.

Where do your friends live? Only in posh areas such as Clifton? Is that the only Karachi you navigate in?

I suppose I have many different Karachis. You are limited to certain neighbourhood obviously. But because of my mother’s political work, because of my writing… for example, I have been spending a lot of time recently in a neighbourhood called Sohrab Goth…

Is it is near Lyari?

No, it’s far from there.

My Karachi friends had strictly warned me not to step into Lyari. It’s considered very dangerous.

You know that’s the problem. Karachiites are afraid of their city. But Lyari is wonderful. I have spent a lot of time there. Lehari is the real Karachi. People know each other. They have a real sense of community. There they share and exchange each other’s experiences. It’s unlike Defence or Clifton where you live in your own bubble and you don’t know what’s happening around.

Yeah, you were talking of Sohrab Goth.

So I’m writing a magazine piece on Afghan refugees in Karachi and that’s why I have been spending a lot of time in Sohrab Goth, which is where some big refugee camps are. So on the other hand I live in Clifton and I’m so very privileged and very comfortable but I never feel that I don’t have access to other parts. If you want to understand your city better and want to discover its other parts, nobody will stop you.

I have heard that your grandfather’s library used to be the best in Asia. It’s at 70, Clifton. Right?

Yes, the library is phenomenal. It is on the ground floor and is my favorite room in the house. We are currently cataloging the books. We have already done 15,000 of them. My mother is amazing… she sorted out all the shelves and numbered each of them.

Tell me about the books there?

What’s amazing about his library is that he loved books. He himself was a writer. Each section of the library is devoted to a certain study or history… so there are tremendous amount of books on south Asia and Raj. You go further ahead, and then you have books on Soviet Union, America, Latin America, China, and the Islamic world. There are books on religion, art and philosophy. Then there are all his law books. He was very fascinated about modern art so we have lots of books on it from the region.

Ms Bhutto, in your website you say that you hate Facebook. Why?

(Laughs) I hate Facebook for several reasons. The idea that, first of all, this company owns everything you put on it is ridiculous. I don’t know why it doesn’t scare more people. And then this whole thing about voyeurism… is kind of what’s wrong with lots of things today… Imagine, on Facebook, for people to spend hours looking at other people’s pictures, reading other people’s messages and looking at other people’s friends... so scary. There is so much lack of privacy.

Point taken. Let’s talk about the book. Why you wanted to write it?

I always knew I was going to do this book. It was one of the last things that I promised to my father just days before he was killed. I remember I was 14 then. We were talking at home late in the night. I said to papa that your life is so fascinating and that you must write your life story, and he laughed and said, “No, no, no, it’s too dangerous what I know and I can’t write it but you write it.” I was excited but then papa said, “No, no, no, after I die,” and I said, “Ok, after you die.”

Ms Bhutto, this talk of death… so casually… wasn’t it abnormal? Was it that being Bhuttos, you all knew that something horrible might happen anytime to any of you?

At that time we were in such a dangerous environment… and I think that each of us knew in our own way that something was wrong… you had this feeling, you felt unsafe. But it was never that we were ever morbid. It wasn’t like that we spoke about the death all the time. But those few days were really quite different.

And then your father was killed and you thought about the book again?

I always knew I was going to do that book. But I was never ready to do it. I was too young. I needed to find so much information. I needed to do so much research. In my college, I was busy finding myself. But when I was doing my Masters in London, I started to think about it. I would remember my father talking about his time in the college…

So when you started writing?

By 2005, I started e-mailing my father’s friends and doing my own detective work of looking people up. It was easier for me because I was in the university. I knew the first names of his friends but I didn’t know anything else. So I started cold-calling his classmates. Papa had studied in Harvard. I went online and found the alumni association and I wrote all of them a letter saying, “Hi, I am uncovering my father’s past. Could you help me?” The response was amazing. It was a surprise. Strangers opened so many doors to me.

Political memoirs are usually ghostwritten, especially when they are by people belonging to some great dynasty. What about your book?

(Laughs) Well, I used to write a weekly column for The News. I wrote a book on the earthquake. I published poetry. So obviously there was no question of someone else writing my words. It would have been like someone pretending to be me on the Facebook. Yes, to answer your question, I wrote the book all by myself.

What was your writing schedule?

I was writing for two years. It helped that I’m an awful insomniac. I would write till very late in the night… till 2 or 3 am. There were times, towards the end of writing the book, when I would wake up at 8 am, write till noon, take a break, go back to it at five or six in the evening and write till eight in the night. And then there were other times when I just had to be alone in front of the computer the whole day. But you have to write everyday. You can’t be temperamental. You can’t write only when the mood strikes. You have to sit there. You need to have the discipline.

You say that you did extensive research for the book. Did you also travel?

Yes, I went to Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi… I went to Houston, Arizona, Phoenix, Washington, Boston, New York. I went to Greece, Lebanon, London, Paris, Damascus…

When you move around in Pakistan, do you fear that you would be killed. After all, the impression of Pakistan is that the country is unstable and volatile. And you are a Bhutto. So many of them have been killed.

The problem with the media is that they give you a picture of a city or country in 30 seconds. And when you look at south Asia, it’s always about blood, poverty…

…and dynasty…

Yes, that seems to be the three big things in our part of the world.

I imagine if a Bhutto is driving around Karachi or Lahore, he or she must be escorted by gun-toting security guards?

Not us (laughs). You see we were never inside the power. We never grew up with this idea that we somehow deserved the attention or that we were celebrities. In 2006, for instance, I went to Chitral (in northern Pakistan) for a story... While interviewing people, I introduced myself as Fatima, not Fatima Bhutoo. And then I went back and the story was published following which I got emails from people asking me, “Oh, why didn’t you tell us you were a Bhutto. We would have hosted a reception for you.” But that’s not how I travel. That’s so limiting. Our parents were so normal. And they were really open and free with us. We never grew up with this chip on our shoulders that we needed to be escorted with sirens everywhere.

Did you read your aunt Benazir’s book, Daughter of the East? What do you think of it?

I read it a long time ago. I must have been ten. A lot of it was very sad. A lot of it was very difficult to read. Mmm, my aunt spelled my name wrong in it (laughs). This was greatly annoying to me. She spelled Fati as Fathi, which was funny.

(a pause)

But you know when I was writing this book, when I was having to go back in my own life and remember things, I remembered when my father was in jail, and how difficult it was to see him, how strict it was… you know… we could only see him for a certain amount of time… if we got late because the jail was very far away, too bad... it was very awful… and I remember that at that time I picked out Daughter of the East again and reading how my own aunt was... how it was so painful for her to leave her father in jail, how she was pulled from her father in jail… and how then she was doing the same thing to us. My memory of this really stands out.

In some ways, yours and Benazir’s memoirs are similar. You both were of the same family. You both wrote about your fathers, both of whom were killed.

But I wanted to write a book that was more journalistic. Benazir’s book was different. Even the title was big in scope. Also, hers was a very personal book. For my book, I did countless interviews. I pulled in countless sources from newspaper archives and academic books. I spoke to so many people. You know, when I read a book, I want to be able to trust what I’m reading. Part of that trust is knowing that the book is well researched and that there are footnotes. If that is absent, I want it to be honest. Malcom X’s autobiography, for instance, is one of my favorite books. Unlike other memoirs you read, he doesn’t start by saying that hey, I’m wonderful and that my family is so great. He was honest. He said I was a hustler, I was a crook, I was self-hating, I had all these problems… his autobiography was a journey. You could see how his life changed. But you read other politician’s memoirs. Those people were always great; they never had to change.

When the world think of the Bhuttos, they largely think of your grandfather, of Benazir and her struggles. The rest of the family has faded into the background. Does it bother you?

Everyone has a right to tell their own story. If we talk about Bhuttos, we know there is a history of violence in the family. I think it is important to understand why the violence happened as opposed to just that it happened. I think in Daughter of the East, Benazir was telling her story. I don’t think she was telling the story of her family.

You have often accused Benazir for being morally responsible for your father’s killing. Do you really believe your late aunt to be capable of such a crime?

The way she impeded the cover up, the way she denied us the right to file a police case, the way she praised the cops who were involved in her brother’s killing… certainly it doesn’t look like that she was innocent.

Ms Bhutto, I think you are the most beautiful Bhutto of our times.

You are the only one to say so. Thanks.

During the launch of Songs of Blood and Sword

Facing the Indians

Reading an excerpt from her book

Her big evening

The thing is...

You know...

If you think about it...

I promised my father...

So that was it

The beautiful Bhutto

↧

City Landmark - Tughlakabad Fort, Near Badarpur

April 9, 2010, 2:02 pm

≫ Next: City Environment – Yamuna River, Jamuna Bazaar

≪ Previous: City Interview – Fatima Bhutto, Pakistani Author

The solitary savageness.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Think frozen music. The Tughlakabad Fort’s sloping rubble-filled outer walls are spread out on a hillock, like ripples of sound waves extending to infinity. The third city of Delhi (circa 1324) lies forsaken. Monkeys have taken over the ramparts. Thorny grass has laid siege to palace enclosures.

Built in just two years by the Tughlak dynasty founder, Ghiyasuddin, the fort’s walls with its invincible fortifications of arrow slots and tiers of loop-holes, were designed to repel the Mongol barbarians, who never came. Inside was a city with a palace and citadel for the king, and neighbourhoods and bazaars for his people. The 14th century traveler Ibn Battuta talked of “gilded tiles” and “vast stores of wealth”. All that has disappeared.

There is no water in the seven tanks. Most of the 13 outer gates are blocked by jungle growth. The underground pits and arched passageways of the citadel are home to snakes and wild peacocks. The vast rugged landscape is marked with remnants of stonewalls. Only the distant boom of the aeroplanes flying above shatters the fort’s regal silence.

After Ghiasuddin’s death in a freak accident (he was inside a pavilion when it collapsed on him), his successor forced Tughlakabad’s population to move into his new capital in central India. The fort fell into disrepair and acquired all the trappings of an abandoned place.

Some believe that Tughlakabad Fort was cursed by Delhi’s Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. Having a strained relationship with Ghiasuddin, he had said, “Ya rahey ujjar, ya basey gujjar” (“May [the fort] remain unoccupied, or else be occupied by herdsmen).”

With its massive circular towers and colossal bastions built to last for all times, the fort’s desolation is especially melancholic. Tourists rarely come to visit this, Delhi’s grandest and largest fort. You must. Tughlakabad’s savageness will stay with you long after you have left its seemingly unassailable ramparts.

Where Mehrauli-Badarpur Road Time Sunrise to sunset (early morning hours are best)

Strong and masculine

City Landmark - Tughlakabad Fort, Near Badarpur

It's there

God, I'm dwarfed

Anybody here?

Splendid isolation

I'm not alone

Air India?

Is Delhi far?

Look, cricket!

For all times

Back to the civilisation

↧

City Environment – Yamuna River, Jamuna Bazaar

April 11, 2010, 5:38 am

≫ Next: Mission Delhi – Surinder, Pataudi House

≪ Previous: City Landmark - Tughlakabad Fort, Near Badarpur

City Environment – Yamuna River, Jamuna Bazaar

Delhi’s holy maa.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Every morning, after milking his buffalo, Pandit Sunil Kumar takes a ritual dip in the sacred Yamuna, also called Jamuna. Originating in the Himalayas, the river enters Delhi from the northeast of the city, near Palla village, and after 40 kms, it leaves the Capital region from near Jaitpur village in the south.

A Hindu priest, Mr Kumar has his ancestral home on a ghat in Jamuna Bazaar, a village on the river’s bank in north Delhi. The residence’s setting is idyllic. One can see the river while sitting in the courtyard. The bank on the other side is uninhabited. The Outer Ring Road is a 5-minute walk away, but there is no traffic noise here. In winter, Siberian cranes visit the river. In summer, you hear the squawking of ducks. From the priest’s courtyard, a short flight of stone stairs leads into the river, the water of which is blackened with Delhi’s sewage. “Since my body gets smelly after taking a dip in Jamuna,” says Mr Kumar, “I have to later take a shower under the hand-pump.”

Delhi generates 3,470 million litres of filth daily (MLD) into the river. But the city has a capacity to treat only 2.325 MLD. In 2009, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had said, “The Yamuna Action Plan I and II have not yielded the desired results despite crores of rupees being spent on them. Though teams were sent to see the Thames and Seine, it would take another seven-eight years for the Yamuna to be like them.”

Till as late as 1982, the river water was safe. “Then we used to cook our daal in its water,” says Mr Kumar. Here is The Delhi Walla’s homage to the city’s holy river.

The urban sensibilities

Darker reflections

Oh, my river!

Here's respite

Naturally cool

A sunny moment

Those who clean souls also clean clothes

Other lives

River-side gossip

A river man

Yamuna watching

My river, my faith

↧

Mission Delhi – Surinder, Pataudi House

April 12, 2010, 5:34 pm

≫ Next: City Landmark – Rajiv Gandhi Setu, Ring Road

≪ Previous: City Environment – Yamuna River, Jamuna Bazaar

One of the one per cent in 13 million.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Effortlessly stitching the sole of a slipper, he says, “Its side has torn off.” After finishing the job, Surinder, 24, cuts off the thick black thread with a knife-like thing that he calls raapi. The lady customer slips her feet into the sandal, looks satisfied, give him Rs 5 and walks off towards Sir Syed Ahmad Khan Road.

“I make around Rs 150 daily,” says Surinder. The Delhi Walla met him in Pataudi House, a tumbledown neighbourhood in Daryaganj, which was named after a once-grand mansion in the vicinity. In a pair of blue denims and a striped shirt, Surinder is sitting at his regular place on the roadside, next to an open drain. There’s no chair, but he does have a padded seat.

Before we can talk further, a burqa-clad lady hurriedly walks over to us and takes off her chappal. Its strap is broken. Surinder hammers a nail into it. The woman tries out the chappal, gives Rs 2 to Surinder and disappears towards Kuchha Dakhan Rai. The young man drops the coin into his wooden cash box, the top of which has a sticker of a bearded saint. “He is Guru Ravidas,” Surinder says. “He belongs to our community. He used to do our kind of work. We worship him.”

Surinder’s father was also a cobbler. In 2001, he died of tuberculosis. “Papa was in the hospital for two months. One afternoon he vomited out blood and before we could understand what was happening, he was dead.” He was cremated on the banks of the Yamuna, in Jamuna Bazaar.

For the first time in her life, Surinder’s mother had to leave home to make a living. She set up a fruit stall in Daryaganj. Another crisis soon surfaced. While living in a two-room house in Welcome Colony, east Delhi, they got new neighbours who gambled and ran a prostitution racket. “We were helpless. My sister couldn’t be left alone even during the day. So we sold the house for Rs 1.75 lakhs and bought another in Sunder Nagri, which is near Gagan Cinema, almost on the edge of Delhi.”

Feeling responsible as the new ‘family elder’, Surinder, the eldest of the four brothers, left school, asked his mother to stay at home and took up his father’s profession. “One faces problems. One has to take tough decisions.”

Then came another problem in Surinder’s life. He fell in love with Mamta, a girl whose house was on the same street as his. “She was dark and weightier than me. Her eyes were big, her hair was long and when she smiled, I felt very happy.” The lovers would go to Hanuman Temple in Preet Vihar, hang out in the ruins of Purana Quila, or walk around in Delhi Zoo. “I kissed her many times but did nothing more.” Three years later, they broke up. Surinder was so upset that he got a classic bleeding heart image tattooed on his left arm.

Besides this private sorrow, Surinder has no other reason to complain. All his brothers are earning. Pavan makes Rs 3,500 monthly at a saree showroom in Nai Sadak. Paras’s monthly salary is Rs 2, 500 at a shoe shop in Chandni Chowk. Vijay sells second-hand shoes near Red Fort every Sunday. All the money goes to the mother.

The family has all the necessary comforts: a television, a washing machine, a refrigerator and a ceiling fan. “But Mummy still cooks on the stove. We don’t have a gas range.”

However, it’s not the kitchen comfort for his mother that is presently driving Mr Surinder to work hard as he takes the 213 Blueline every morning for Daryaganj. “My sister, Rekha, is 18 and my dream is to marry her to a good boy,” he says.

What after the sister is married?

“What after my sister’s marriage…” he finds himself at a loss of words before suddenly shooting back, “Whatever the man up there in the sky will decide.”

[This is the 18th portrait of the Mission Delhi project]

Give me your shoe

Getting busy

Tattoo after the break-up

Fixing the flower

Daily earning

Hammering

At work

Fixing the sandal

Mr Surinder's workstation

Sister's marriage on the mind

↧

City Landmark – Rajiv Gandhi Setu, Ring Road

April 14, 2010, 11:45 pm

≫ Next: Photo Essay - Faces of Delhi

≪ Previous: Mission Delhi – Surinder, Pataudi House

City Landmark – Rajiv Gandhi Setu, Ring Road

An urban refuge.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

A smoggy traffic square that was once dreaded by commuters for its long jams has become an unlikely urban haven. On one grassy slope, a group of women is playing kabaddi. On another, a cricket match is on. A few furlongs away, a badminton game is nearing its end. Across the road, the electric signboard of All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) is blinking red and green. Meanwhile, cars are speeding in all four directions - Dhaula Kuan, Ashram, INA Market and Green Park. It’s just another late summer night in Rajiv Gandhi Setu.

Popularly known as the AIIMS flyover, the nine-lane signal-free traffic interchange on the Ring Road is now also a place for Delhiites to unwind. “It’s so green,” says Yogesh Verma, a college student, who comes here daily from Kidwai Nagar West, a nearby neighbourhood.

Opened in 2003, Rajiv Gandhi Setu, named after a former Prime Minister, was a hideout for sex workers and drug addicts. Completely sanitized of the low life, the place now pulls in family crowd – from cousins and aunties to grannies and pet dogs - making it an open-sky social beach in night-time Delhi.

There are hardly such spaces in the city. Most parks close their gates by 9 pm. Of course, that doesn’t make the slopes of the Setu comparable to the sprawling expanse of India Gate, which too remains alive till late hours. The AIIMS flyover will never attract people from all over Delhi. The gardens here are not large and being at the centre of the traffic intersection, there is no parking facility. Almost all the late-night regulars live in the vicinity and they come here rather casually - as part of their after-dinner evening walk.

“It’s very open here and you feel less hot,” says Uma Kumari, a Kidwai Nagar housewife, taking a break from the kabaddi match. Most people here come from Kidwai Nagar, though The Delhi Walla also met five young wall-painters from Kalu Sarai Village, two miles away, near IIT flyover. “We boys live together and when we come to this park and sit among the families here, we think of our people back home,” says Mohammad Ramzan, one of the painters.

Amid a network of flyovers, loops and slip roads crisscrossing the area, the hillocks in the traffic intersection have been landscaped with grass, flowers and plants, so that you don’t feel the smog. By 9 pm, the evening rush hour thins to a trickle and the temperature drops. The water sprinklers keep the grass wet and the air fragrant with the scent of damp earth.

The Setu’s popularity also indicates the lack of open gardens in the city’s nighbourhoods, which is why residents choose to take the risk of crossing busy highways to reach a place such as this.

“When there was no park here, we would hang out around a gumbad (a domed monument) in Kidwai Nagar,” says Yogesh. “But there was no place to sit. We couldn’t lie down on the grass like we do here.”

As part of the landscape, the gardens also have a couple of ‘steel sprouts’ installations that have been criticized on grounds of aesthetics. The regulars don’t mind. Children love climbing the long ‘stalks’ of these sprouts. “But we have some demands,” says housewife Saroj Kumari. “We want at least one security guard and four dustbins.” Also a few ice-cream wallas, please.

Where Near AIIMS Best time 9 pm to 11 pm

On the crossroads

Beautiful evening

Green and open

Aunty's night out

Urban getaway

Band of brothers

Balcony view

Kabaddi, kabaddi

So peaceful

The homesick painters from Kalu Sarai

Bye bye, brother

↧

Photo Essay - Faces of Delhi

April 16, 2010, 10:05 pm

≫ Next: City Food – Number Walli Kulfi, Old Delhi

≪ Previous: City Landmark – Rajiv Gandhi Setu, Ring Road

Your people, my people.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Look carefully. Maybe at least one of these faces is familiar to you. Maybe you passed by her in Connaught Place. Maybe you brushed past his shoulders at the Karol Bagh station. Or... maybe you haven't seen any of them. Still, look at every person photographed here. They all live in this city. They all belong to you.

Portrait

Portrait

Portrait

Portrait

↧

City Food – Number Walli Kulfi, Old Delhi

April 18, 2010, 5:56 pm

≫ Next: Mission Delhi – Ram Swaroop Sharma, India Gate Maidan

≪ Previous: Photo Essay - Faces of Delhi

City Food – Number Walli Kulfi, Old Delhi

The sweet game.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

If you want to taste summer-time Delhi, grab a kulfi, the Indian-style ice cream that comes in flavours like pista, rose, cardamom and saffron. Unfortunately, eclipsed by brightly lit ice cream trolleys, kulfi-wallas have become rare, and the ones with something called game-carts still rarer.

Gone are the days when children would run at the first sound of the kulfi walla’s ghanti (bell) to wake up mothers from their afternoon siestas and pester for a rupee. So don’t let the opportunity go if you see a kulfi cart fitted with a desi-style roulette wheel. Drop a coin in the spinning wheel to win as many kulfis as the number on which it comes to rest. If it is the pinball game instead, pray the kancha (small glass ball) lands into the highest value square. So if it's number five, you'll get five kulfis.

One hot summer afternoon, The Delhi Walla discovered such a game-cart in a Bulbuli Khana bylane in Old Delhi. The neighbourhood’s children had surrounded Mr Sumit's cart to play pinball. They were hitting the kancha by pulling a spring attached to a wooden block. The kancha would shoot up, strike the boundary wall and roll down into an array of pins where it might fall into one of the spaces marked with numbers.

Amidst much shoving, I too gave a coin and waited. My kancha reached close to a square that was numbered four but then it refused to move. The kind Mr Sumit discreetly pushed it inside and produced four kulfis from his wooden ice-box. The winning trophies, dipped in milk, were cool, creamy, and sugary. I felt like a champ.

Three times delight

Who will play?

What's your lucky number?

Taking out the trophy

All eyes on the kulfi

My smile is sweeter

And for the sister?

Mr Sumit, the kulfi walla

And one for you

↧

Mission Delhi – Ram Swaroop Sharma, India Gate Maidan

April 20, 2010, 4:43 am

≫ Next: City Locality – Middle Lane, Connaught Place

≪ Previous: City Food – Number Walli Kulfi, Old Delhi

Mission Delhi – Ram Swaroop Sharma, India Gate Maidan

One of the one per cent in 13 million.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The roti seems to be a few days old. Packed in a mud-stained handkerchief, it is broken into small pieces. With no sabzi or even a smidgen of pickle to go with it, these dry and crumbly remains of the staple Indian bread are the entire breakfast for Ram Swaroop Sharma. The Delhi Walla found him one summer morning lounging on the grassy grounds adjacent to Rajpath, the broad avenue that connects Rashtrapati Bhawan to India Gate. The area is popularly known as India Gate maidan.

Surrounded by leafy trees, damp grass and untrimmed hedges, Mr Sharma, 45, looks like an Indian avatar of Henry David Thoreau, the American naturalist who celebrated a life devoid of materialism. “I’m living here for eight years,” he says in a low voice.

Mr Sharma is not a natural talker. His words are few and far between, punctuated with long pauses. He often raises his head and moves his lips as if about to speak… but the words don’t come. The eyes, however, say much more than his speech, animated by some seemingly chaotic feelings. When I ask how he makes a living, Mr Sharma struggles to reply. Minutes pass, but no answer comes.

I persist.

“It’s so hot. How can you wear a jacket?”

No answer.

“What will you have for lunch?”

No answer.

“Do you sleep in the maidan every night?”

A nod.

Encouraged, I continue.

“You are not scared of the insects and snakes here?”

A shake of the head.

“Well, where are you from?”

“Rajasthan,” he finally speaks.

I make a note of everything Mr Sharma says in the next few minutes to my queries:

“I was born in Kerala, Trichur.”

“Last night I had a roti with green chillies.”

“I did diploma in mechanics from Madhya Pradesh.”

“I have two brothers.”

What brought him to Delhi? Why must he live under the open sky? Where does he get his rotis from? Why can’t he return to his family in Rajasthan? How does he make a living?

Mr Sharma, it seems, tries to address all these queries but his mouth does not open despite his best effort.

Since he will not talk, it is difficult to gauge if this is a life of choice or of compulsion. But at this moment, Mr Sharma owns all the essentials of life. His roti is in the handkerchief. His plastic water bottles are full. His clothes are stuffed in a bag. For reading, he has the old opinion pages of The Times of India.

Not far from where Mr Sharma is sitting is the office of the Prime Minister of India. Behind him is the building of Udyog Bhawan, which houses the ministry of commerce and industry. Also visible is the palatial residence of the President. These establishments exist to improve the lives of millions of Indians like Mr Sharma. However, Mr Sharma himself appears to have transcended the boundary within which anybody has the power to affect his life.

If terrorists attack the Delhi Metro, if the price of arhar daal skyrockets further, if the government falls, or if India becomes the world's richest superpower, Mr Sharma will probably still be sitting here, unmoved and carefree. He is no longer connected to this world or so it seems.

[This is the 19th portrait of the Mission Delhi project]

Mr Sharma's address

Lost in thoughts

Roti crumbs for breakfast

Other lives go on

That's Rashtrapati Bhawan

One man Vs Udyog Bhawan

Mr Sharma's backyard for eight years

See you, Mr Sharma

↧

City Locality – Middle Lane, Connaught Place

April 22, 2010, 11:13 pm

≫ Next: City Kitchen - Julia Child in GB Road

≪ Previous: Mission Delhi – Ram Swaroop Sharma, India Gate Maidan

City Locality – Middle Lane, Connaught Place

It's not loved.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Its curved passage is empty. The stone floor uneven. The wall disfigured. The plaster is chipping off. This short passage connects the Outer Circle corridor to the Middle Lane of M-block in Connaught Place (CP), Delhi’s colonial-era shopping district, which is being given a major facelift in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games.

Most showrooms and restaurants in CP line its Inner Circle. Since the opening of the Rajiv Chowk Metro Station at Central Park in 2006, newer cafes, fast food outlets and an increase in footfall has brightened the otherwise dull Outer Circle too. It’s the Middle Circle that remains drab. Drabber still is the Middle Lane that links the Outer Circle to the Middle. The stylish crowd is rarely spotted here, despite its proximity to watering holes such as Q’ba, @live and Blues.

“I’m running this shop here since 1978,” says Anup Kumar of Rameshwar Das, a stationary store that is one of the only two shops in the passageway. “While Inner Circle has undergone a makeover and Outer Circle is being renovated, the Middle Lane hasn’t changed at all.” Outside, the wall’s whitewashed layer has peeled off exposing large patches of blue. “Sometimes I get my side of wall painted,” says Mr Kumar.

An attempt at the corridor’s beautification was definitely done in the past. Of the two side lanes to the passageway, while the one towards Kumar’s shop is cemented, the one on the other side has a marbled flooring in chessboard pattern.

Office goers, salesmen, young couples and shoppers walking in the Outer Circle corridor rarely throw a peek into this gallery. Its other end opens into the Middle Lane. On the right are five auto spare parts shops. Upstairs is something rarer — private residences.

Sanjeev Gupta has been living in his second floor apartment for 47 years. His terrace has a lovely view of the Outer Circle Road and of high-rises such as Statesman Tower and Gopaldas Building. “Outer and Inner Circles are being redone. The Middle Circle may be the next,” Mr Gupta says, hopefully.

Next, The Delhi Walla calls Anand Tiwari of New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), the agency renovating the area. “Our focus are Inner and Outer Circles,” Mr Tiwari says. “In the Middle Lane, we are setting up tunnels with service ducting for electric wires and cables, water and sewage. There won’t be any new-look Middle Lane.”

So, while the Georgian architecture of CP’s Inner and Outer Circles have started shining, the Middle Circle will remain as it always has.

Not everyone minds this status quo. Painter Karim Khan, who feels “the presence of a sea beach whenever he is in Connaught Place”, says, “I will always prefer the Middle Lane over the Inner and Outer Circles. For me, a beautiful woman who is dead is nothing compared to an ugly woman who is alive."

Almost forgotten, Middle Lane passageway

Much loved Outer Circle

Not much life, Middle Lane

This too is CP, Middle Lane

Another view, Middle Lane

Mr Gupta's home, Middle Lane

Mr Gupta's terrace view, Middle Lane

CP renovation, Outer Circle

↧

City Kitchen - Julia Child in GB Road

April 25, 2010, 6:52 pm

≫ Next: City Food – Lassi, Chandni Chowk

≪ Previous: City Locality – Middle Lane, Connaught Place

The great chef's life in Delhi.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Meet the Julia Child of GB Road, Delhi’s red light district. A sex worker, Ms Child lives on the rooftop of Kotha no. XX, an establishment that is home to half a dozen women. Ms Child has no TV, no furniture, no crockery and no gas range. She does have a stove and a vanity box. Every night at 2 am she dresses up in a flashy costume, puts on the make up, and goes down to the street to solicit customers. She returns home at dawn. And yes, Ms Child cooks. Here is the recipe of her 'Egg Bujiya Curry':

Actually this recipe is my own creation. Nobody taught me cooking. I learnt it myself. Today I want to make egg curry but for that you will have to boil the eggs and I can’t wait that long. So, we’ll be having Egg Bhujiya Curry instead.

3 tablespoons mustard oil
4 eggs
3 sliced onions
2 sliced tomatoes
2 sliced potatoes
Pinch of spices
Methi seeds
A tablespoon of garlic and ginger paste each
Salt to taste
I glass water

Heat the oil in a karahi (wok) over medium heat. Add methi seeds. When they start crackling, add onions and saute till they turn brown. Add a pinch of ginger and garlic paste along with dry spices such as garam masala, haldi and mirchi. Sprinkle on salt. Stir till the oil starts coming out. Add sliced tomatoes and continue to saute. Add sliced potatoes and water, and cover the karahi. If you smoke, do that in these five minutes. Are potatoes tender? If yes, quickly pour in the beaten eggs. Stir for a minute and turn off the flame. Sprinkle freshly chopped coriander leaves on the curry and serve it with rice.

Also see:

Julia Child in Jorbagh

Julia's empire

Peel, peel, peel

Slice, slice, slice

Action starts

Smoking break

Now add the eggs

It's done

Curry is served

↧

City Food – Lassi, Chandni Chowk

April 27, 2010, 5:44 pm

≫ Next: Mission Delhi - Kareem Khan, Nehru Place

≪ Previous: City Kitchen - Julia Child in GB Road

The cool yoghurt drink.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Delhi has no copyright over the sweet-tart lassi. The cool, creamy, frothy yoghurt drink is delicious nourishment across India, especially during the summer. It is simple to make - whip in yoghurt with sugar and it is done. Add malai (clotted cream), it is heavy. Throw in some ice, it becomes light.

Highway eateries in Punjab are said to prepare great quantities of lassi by whisking yogurt in washing machines! For the most memorable lassi experience in Delhi, go to the tail end of 17th century Chandni Chowk bazaar in Old Delhi. Two lassi joints – Amritsari Lassiwalla (circa 1974) and Meghraj (since 1900) – stand across the red gateway of Fatehpuri Masjid.

Meghraj’s lassi comes without any trappings. A mix of yoghurt, sugar and nothing else, the lassi is so thick with malai that it is served with a spoon. The adjacent Amritsari lassi stall has an equally fulfilling option, but in a variety of flavours – mango, rose, banana, saffron, cumin, often garnished with chopped almonds.

Of course, such drinks are served in expensive south Delhi restaurants also, but the settings there are too sanitised. In Chandni Chowk, as you take the sip, the chilled milky relief of the lassi calms the tired nerves that inevitably come with an excursion to the Walled City. And the sights and sounds of Fatehpuri Masjid’s crowded T-junction – one lane going to Khari Baoli, the other to Lal Kuan and the third to Red Fort – is forever preserved along with the memory of the sweet tanginess of the lassi you are sipping. Later all that you will need to evoke Old Delhi in your mind’s eye will be the remembered taste of that yoghurt drink.

Sweet 'n' cool

Sense of the Place, Fatehpuri intersection

That's Amritsari Lassiwalla

Meghraj's simple lassi

Lassi drinkers

Cool comfort

More lassi please

↧

Mission Delhi - Kareem Khan, Nehru Place

April 29, 2010, 9:24 pm

≫ Next: City Life - Love, Friendship, Sex

≪ Previous: City Food – Lassi, Chandni Chowk

Mission Delhi – Kareem Khan, Nehru Place

One of the one per cent in 13 million.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Sitting beside his second-hand books, Karim Khan, 52, lights up a Goldflake cigarette. In the evening’s gathering darkness, the surrounding office skyscrapers of Nehru Place are looking like sleepy giants. I’m meeting Mr Khan after two years. I would come to this commercial complex, famous for its computer hardware workshops, to buy books from his stall. “I’m no longer only a bookseller,” says Mr Khan.

The bookseller, who would draw charcoal sketches of people on the pages of his worm-ridden books, has become an established painter. The man who once found it difficult to pay his chaiwalla now sells his paintings priced between Rs 30,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh. Mr Khan has moved up in life. “I think we all move... forward, sideways. I must not get boring. I must experience different things in life. I must show my age and experiences in my paintings. I must draw the journey that took me to become what I became.”

But where is the Mr Khan I knew? That man who was not so polite. Talking to the painter, I miss the bookseller. Every evening I came to Nehru Place to check out what’s new at his stall. One evening I found a book on the origins of Jazz music. Another day I got a catalogue of the Prado museum. Every day, we’d quarrel like fishwives over an amount as little as Rs 5. Mr Khan called me names. I abused him back. Once, he accused me of not paying the full amount of a rare set of Time-Life cookbooks. He would set goons on me, he promised.

Two years have passed since that incident. This evening, we are talking like civilised people. Mr Khan says I wear better clothes. I note that Mr Khan has started trimming his beard. His shirt has no crease. “You have to be compatible with the changing circumstances. Now I’m invited to parties. I have to look clean.”

A native of Silchar, Assam, Mr Khan was a college dropout who came to Delhi in 1989 “to find out what art is all about.” He ended up selling second-hand books in Nehru Place. During the day, he would halfheartedly hard-sell best-selling novelists such as Dan Brown and Chetan Bhagat to the area’s software professionals. Bless the man who came asking for directions. Mr Khan would destroy his self-esteem by throwing one acidic glare. Often, he was seen drawing portraits of shoppers. Sometimes sad, beautiful women would spend hours in his company. In evenings, Mr Khan had his durbar of painters and book lovers who would talk on life, sex and Tolstoy. I was never admitted to the coterie. “Because you were so silent.”

In 2008, Mahesh Bansal, a businessman who has a sanitary showroom in suburban Noida, came to Nehru Place, spotted Mr Khan, liked his way of talking and started visiting him daily. “I would find him making these wonderful sketches but he would throw them away and stray dogs would pee on them. I had this empty commercial space in Noida and I decided to turn it into a gallery to showcase his work,” Mr Bansal told me on phone.

In 2010, introducing his first solo exhibition, Beyond the Obvious, critic Alka Rahguvanshi wrote, “A deep melancholy hangs over Khan's works. Like fine mist it envelops them in an invisible net that draws the onlooker into its lair like a gossamer web, almost forcing them to linger. The metaphors are urban, the inspirational mainstay emerging from imagery that is almost European in style and content.”

As offices starts shutting off their lights, Mr Khan invites me to his friend’s place in Gautam Nagar in south Delhi. Our auto breaks down in Uday Park. We walk to a Punjabi eatery. Over dal makhani and butter naan, I recall my past evenings with Mr Khan. He talked on Manet’s impressionism, Chekov’s stories and Shakespeare’s sonnets. “Will you move to Europe?” I ask. “No, I’m a hardcore Delhiite.”

Waiting for more naans, Mr Khan suddenly starts on a Russian novelist. “If you read Dostoyevsky, you feel you are looking at modern art. His novels are not very straight. Freud went into psychoanalysis after reading Dostoyevsky.”

After our meal, Mr Khan will return to his studio and paint. In the morning, he will take the auto to Nehru Place and sell books. “People come to me when they need novels with strange-sounding titles. They have all sorts of faces. And since I’m into figurative art, I draw their portraits on the back of my books with my charcoal pen.” True, things have changed; yet nothing has changed.

[This is the 20th portrait of the Mission Delhi project]

It was a long journey (Mr Khan with one of his works)

Not just a bookseller

Look, I've struggled

Such is life

Artist spotting

His sweat story

Mr Khan's admirer

New painting in mind?

Thinking of the lost time?

Present perfect

↧

City Life - Love, Friendship, Sex

May 2, 2010, 6:34 pm

≫ Next: City Food - Samosa, Delite Cinema & Scindia Lane

≪ Previous: Mission Delhi - Kareem Khan, Nehru Place

What Delhiwallas want.

[Text and picture by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The Delhi Walla spent an entire day browsing through several dating websites in which Delhiites are looking for what they presumably lack in their lives. Here’s a sample. It’s cheesy, raunchy and also sometimes moving. I haven’t made corrections to the grammar, spellings etc. This is Delhi's English.

“Hi this is rahuuuul here.m staying n delhi east n m doing bba from ip university and m intsdtd n frndship and long term, not intsdtd in sex but one night stand will do."

“Looking forward to meetin up wid witty and smart guys, not to sort U.N. issues but 2 jus simply hav fun wid;)"

“I am a well setteled and well educated man, like to know people and life as it comes. i like honest stateforward people, who can be a good freind for sex."

“I m smooth n silky versatile woman.....meet me near j.n.u. south delhi."

“I have learnt ayurvedic massage if anyone wants something special in massage call me XXXXXXX."

“M looking for a drag queen aged 20 to 35 who is sincere, discrete and polite. She should take a reasonable pride in herself and should be clean and hygienic."

“I am sexy and i am from rohini."

“I am looking for long time friendship with sex."

“Looking for fun n friendship am in dwarka with place. Thanks."

“I am a hot lesbian ..luking for the same.. if u dont match my standards, either forget me..or raise ur standards."

“Give me your nector!"

“Available only as a soulmate for some one who knows d meaning of living together & is interested in d same-not 4 long-term but 4 life-term. read profile with patience."

“Horny Muscular guy in central delhi. Looking for Wild Sex. Workout at Fitness First, Connaught Place."

↧

City Food - Samosa, Delite Cinema & Scindia Lane

May 6, 2010, 5:45 pm

≫ Next: Mission Delhi – Sunita Pandit, Palika Bazaar Park

≪ Previous: City Life - Love, Friendship, Sex

Delhi’s biggest and smallest samosas.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

What is Delhi without its ruins? What is a samosa without its potatoes? Boil it, mash it, mix in the spices, scoop it up in a flour patty, deep fry and serve it with tamarind chutney.

But just as there is more to Delhi than its forts, there is more to a samosa than the tuber. A few stalls in Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk have samosas with peas, only peas. The Muslim quarters in Nizamuddin Basti and Ballimaran have shacks selling keema (minced meat) samosas. The vegetarians gamely opt for a paneer (cottage cheese) filling. Mithai stores such as the Bengali Sweet House in Bengali Market have tiny triangles of golden brown maida crust stuffed with khoya (dried milk).

However, the samosa’s traditional identification in Delhi lies with the potato. The Capital’s biggest sized samosa, aptly called Maha Samosa, is the specialty of Delite, the 1951 circa movie theater on the fringes of the Walled City. You will have to buy a movie ticket to get to the samosa counter. Beneath the crisp shell lies a potato mixture so richly spiced with coriander and cumin that the aroma alone makes you dizzy. Delite's samosas are so popular that the movie-watching crowd makes an advance booking for them to be delivered on their seats during the film interval.

In a bylane near Scindia House, in the shopping district of Connaught Place, vendors sell samosas that are small enough to be passed off as cocktail samosas in the party circuit. The potatoes, cooked with peas and groundnuts, and spiked with cardamom and black pepper, are shoved inside a flour patty within which they guard their flavour as Mughals did their harem women. One bite of it and the samosa is over. But the taste remains with you for a long time.

Price for a samosa in Delite Rs 35 Price of 8 samosas in Scindia Lane Rs 10

Delite's big samosa

Samosa counter, Delite

Delite's delight

The cocktail variety, Scindia Lane

Samosas ready to be deep-fried, on Curzon Road

Samosas in Chandni Chowk

His samosa moment

↧

Mission Delhi – Sunita Pandit, Palika Bazaar Park

May 8, 2010, 8:25 pm

≫ Next: City Season – Amaltas Tree, Hauz Khas Village

≪ Previous: City Food - Samosa, Delite Cinema & Scindia Lane

One of the one per cent in 13 million.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Intently looking around, her eyes focus in on the the corner bench. A joda (couple) is sitting there. Sunita Pandit, 56, walks up to them. The Delhi Walla follows her. It is evening and we are at the park above Palika Bazaar parking in Connaught Place. The summer sun has just gone down and the park is beginning to attract people eager to take in the evening’s cool air. There are families, groups of friends, and couples. Since there are only a few benches, most sit on the grass. A little later the place will be swarming with homosexuals; the park is a popular cruising zone.

Reaching the bench, Ms Pandit claps to get the attention and stretches out her right palm towards the embarrassed couple. “May God keep your companionship intact,” she says. “May you both always be happy.” The boy withdraws his arm from the girl’s shoulder, takes out Rs 20 from his shirt pocket and gives it to Ms Pandit.

She then walks to a group of three people – two boys and a girl. They are sitting on the grass. “Please give something. God will keep you blessed.” The girl reminds Ms. Pandit that she had given her money only two days ago. “Oh, I think I must’ve forgotten.” Smiling and shaking her head, Ms Pandit walks away.

I catch up with Ms Pandit as she takes a short break from the dhanda (profession) to rest against an iron railing. There are holes in her pale green kurta. She is staring blankly at the Regal Theater, a colonial-era cinema complex that can be seen on the right side of the park. The golden light of the twilight hour has brought her day-old stubble into sharp focus. The hairs on her arms are more conspicuous than her large ear danglers. Her lipstick is red and the eye lids are brushed purple. There's a large red bindi on her forehead.

“I realized I was a hinjra when I was five.” Hinjras, or eunuchs, are one of India’s most mysterious people; they earn money by flaunting their ambiguous sexuality but remain secretive about their personal lives. They live in groups, under the guardianship of a guru. Every group has its own ‘neighbourhood’. At every birth or wedding in the area, the hinjras go to the household, sing, dance, and demand money. They are rarely sent back empty-handed since it is not considered a good omen to receive the ill-wishes of a hinjra.

However, Ms. Pandit operates alone. She has no guru and belongs to no group. She lives in a one-room house in Paharganj, a residential area that is walking distance from Connaught Place. “The rent is Rs 1,800.” Ms Pandit wakes up daily at 5 am, goes out to a tea-stall to have chai, returns home, showers, and does the morning prayers. By 7 am, she is in Connaught Place.

For someone who earns by blessing romantic couples, Ms Pandit herself doesn’t believe in love. “I never feel lonely. I never felt the need for a lover. Then you will have to work extra to feed him too.”

Just then two beggar children come close to us. Ms Pandit asks them to leave. They refuse. She suddenly picks up a stone and throws at them. The children start abusing her. She responds back. “Choot. Maa ka bhosra. Teri maa chudh jaye.”

Ms Pandit’s family home is in a village near Allahabad, in eastern Uttar Pradesh. “I have parents, brothers, sisters-in-law and nephews at home. They all give me izzat (respect) though I was born a eunuch.”

Then why do you beg? Why don’t you go back to your family?

“As long as I can earn, I’ll stay on in this city.”

Next week Ms Pandit will be taking the train to Allahabad. She will be gone for a week. “My nephew is getting married.”

After a few minutes of silence, Ms Pandit gets up from the iron railing and starts looking for more couples. She spots one at the far end of the park. Before going she turns to me and says, “May God give you his barkat (blessing).”

[This is the 21st portrait of the Mission Delhi project]

Looking for the 'couple'

May God bless you all

Taking a break

May you all be happy

Over to the other side

I'm loved; I'm not lonely

↧

City Season – Amaltas Tree, Hauz Khas Village

May 10, 2010, 9:48 pm

≫ Next: City Food – Ram Laddoo, Around Town

≪ Previous: Mission Delhi – Sunita Pandit, Palika Bazaar Park

City Season – Amaltas Trees, Hauz Khas Village

The summer’s gift.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

On April 12th, 2010, the tree was bare except for four dry leaves. When an eagle flew past the branches, they looked bleak. The Delhi Walla was in Hauz Khas Village, known for its 14th century ruins and designer boutiques. The tree lay in a desolate yard, an extension of the monument complex. It was as tall as the adjacent apartment complexes. Since it had nothing on it, I could not figure out which tree it was.

On May 10th, I again went to the same place. It was a different sight. Thousands of bright yellow fragrant flowers drooped down from the tree’s branches. Many had fallen. The floor was carpeted with them. The yard has two unknown tombs and one was hidden from the view. The tree, so unfamiliar last month, was the famous Amaltas (Cassia fistula).

The leaves of the Amaltas, one of the most widespread forest trees of India, shed early in April. The tree starts flowering in May, the month in which Delhiwallas become restless. It gets very hot. Those who can afford to, leave the city for cooler places. But Delhi is most beautiful at this time of the year when streets, roundabouts and avenues are lit up with the yellow bloom of the Amaltas. There is hardly a part of the city that is left untouched by them. As the noon grows white-hot, the yellow flowers cool the senses of anyone who dares to go into the open. The harshest season becomes bearable.

In his book, Trees of Delhi, author Pradip Krishen notes: “Amaltas is in danger of becoming (like the peacock) so common that we stop noticing it. Amrita Shergil Marg, Shanti Path and Akbar Road are lined with it. Shakti Sthal has many trees. Common as crows in every park and large garden, it is thinly scattered throughout the Ridge and in Jawaharlal Nehru University’s untended areas."

To see the Amaltas in full bloom, you may also go to Hailey Road, near Connaught Place. The entire stretch there looks like the canvass of an impressionist painter at work. The park outside the entrance of Humayun’s Tomb is another lovely sight. But if you are scared of the heat, peer out of your window. Can you see those lovely yellow splotches there? That’s Amaltas.

Click here to read another story on the Amaltas.

When there were no flowers

The summer starts...

Sense of the season

Amazing Delhi

The dead has got company

Blue sky, yellow tree

The remains of the Amaltas

Through the yellow flowers

Look up, Sir

The yellow carpet

One will do

The lucky balcony

So indifferent

The Amaltas

City Season – Amaltas Tree, Hauz Khas Village

Thank you, summer

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City Food – Ram Laddoo, Around Town

May 12, 2010, 4:59 pm

≫ Next: Capital Notice – An American Reader Partially Funds The Delhi Walla

≪ Previous: City Season – Amaltas Tree, Hauz Khas Village

Simple and honest.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Nobody knows how the deep fried balls of moong dal came to be known as Ram laddoo. It might have followed the Hindu belief that something with no name can always be attributed to Ram, one of the most venerated gods. Strangely, two completely different food items are labelled Ram laddoo in Delhi. While one is these crusty daal dumplings, the other is a sweet-sour teeny-weeny ball of tamarind pulp enmeshed with pomegranate seeds. 

Vendors, mostly migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, carry the wicker baskets of Ram laddoos on their head and a bamboo stand under their arm. Stopping where the crowd is, they set up the stall and serve the dumplings in a leaf bowl, garnishing them with grated radish, deep-fried batter-coated green chillies, and a generous helping of raw mango-pudina chutney. The laddoo is dry, but the juicy radish knocks out its little toughness. The crumbly blandness is balanced with the chutney’s biting sourness. 

Such vendors are often spotted in the flea market of Janpath. There is one at the bus stop in South Extension-I. In Lajpat Nagar’s Central Market, vendors stock their laddoos in carts. Theirs is softer, but they add no extra garnish to gain extra points from customers. It is this stubborn simplicity that makes Ram laddoos so evocative of the old times when life was so less complicated.

Price of one plate of Ram laddoo Rs 5

I'm lovin' it (Janpath)

The complete buffet (Green Park)

My laddoos, my pride (South extension-I)

More chutney? (Green Park)

Food on the move (South Extension-I)

Closer Look (Green Park)

Pleasure is mine (South Extension-I)

Pleasure is mine too (Kotla Mubarakpur)

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Capital Notice – An American Reader Partially Funds The Delhi Walla

May 14, 2010, 7:56 pm

≫ Next: Mission Delhi – Salim Javeri, Nizamuddin Basti

≪ Previous: City Food – Ram Laddoo, Around Town

Peter Saal gifts a Flickr subscription.

[Text by Mayank Austen Soofi; picture by Virendra Singh Gosain]

The pictures in the blogsite The Delhi Walla are uploaded through Flickr.com, the online photo management and sharing application. Last year an American called Peter Saal gifted a one-year subscription of unlimited Flickr services to The Delhi Walla. It meant that I could store and show any number of pictures to you.

I have never met Mr Saal. Why then was he spending his money for this blogsite? Mr Saal wrote:

Mayank's photography and prose are always illuminating. I have learned more about Delhi - socially, historically, and culturally - by viewing and reading Mayank's photographs and writings. His 'street photography' has a freshness that I have only encountered in the work of Raghubir Singh.

It was very flattering. As the subscription was coming to an end in May, 2010, I wondered if Mr Saal still feel the same about my work. When I contacted him asking if he would be interested in gifting me a subscription for yet another year, he e-mailed saying, “I'd be willing... how much is it?”

Why was he doing it? He said, “I admire your work.”

A history buff, Mr Saal visited India in June, 2006. Besides Chennai, Bangalore, Mysore and Hyderabad, he also came to Delhi. In our latest correspondence, he noted, “The Delhi Walla makes it evident that there were plenty of things that I didn't see (and many Delhi-ites probably don't know about). If the economy ever recovers, I would love to go back for an extended visit.”

Mr Saal, I’ll be your guide.

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Mission Delhi – Salim Javeri, Nizamuddin Basti

May 16, 2010, 8:00 pm

≫ Next: City Landmark - Gurdwara Seesganj, Chandni Chowk

≪ Previous: Capital Notice – An American Reader Partially Funds The Delhi Walla

Mission Delhi – Salim Javeri, Nizamuddin Basti

One of the one per cent in 13 million.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

He walks to the young man and whisper in English, “Sir, I see you are lucky. ” The man stares at him for a moment, looks scared and goes away. He lowers his head and then raises his eyes looking around suspiciously. The Delhi Walla goes to him and together we sit down on the pavement bench. It is late night and we are on Mathura Road, just outside the main entrance to Nizamuddin Basti, the 14th century village famous for a sufi shrine that gives its name to the locality.

“At present I’m in a very poor condition,” Salim Javeri says. In a dusty blue jeans and a long muddy-white kurta, he has a green scarf hanging round his neck. His beard is scraggly. Chest hair is springing out from his kurta buttons. He has drooping shoulders; his eyes are sunken. Sitting away from the orange glow of the street lamp, he is reduced to his silhouette.

“I collect donations from pilgrims who come to visit the Baba,” he says referring to the sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. In India, educated people speak such good English. Where did Mr Javeri, a beggar, learn this language? He is not exhibiting that pathetically poor persona, devoid of all dignity, that is thought by beggars to appeal to the charitable instincts of the well-off. Who is this man? Why is he forced to beg?

“It is my internal matter. Not open to anyone.” Taking out a packet from his kurta, Mr Javeri says, “If you don’t mind, you like sweet biscuits?”

Over the glucose biscuits, Mr Javeri give clues to his life:
• He is from Benares, UP.
• He was born in March, 1965.
• He is a graduate in Sociology from Kashi Vidhyapeeth University in Benares.
• He was employed as a maintenance engineer in Texla TV.
• He has parents, two brothers, a wife and a son. They live in Benares.
• He left for Delhi in 2001.

Mr Javeri: “I’m in no position to go back.”

Me: “Why?”

Mr Javeri: “What to say… economic and maintenance (sic) reasons.”

Me: “If you have problems, why can’t your family help you?”

Mr Javeri: “Time passes. Poverty is powerful.”

A pause and then Mr Javeri continues: “I have developed certain weak points in my character and though I try to get rid of them, I can’t. So I can’t face my family.”

Me: “What are those weak points?”

Mr Javeri: “You are yourself intelligent. I’m a smack-ey.”

Smack, or heroin, is an addictive substance sold illegally in Delhi in powder form. In the underground subways, for instance, the homeless are often seen inhaling its fumes. “I put the powder in an aluminum foil, which I heat from below with a matchstick and then I sniff the fumes, the real thing.”

It feels great?

“Look, the fact is that the fumes are powerful only for those who are trying smack for the first time or having it after a long gap. For people like me who smoke it daily, we are so used to it that we feel no effect. Instead, we feel a powerful effect when we don’t have it. Then our body stiffens. We don’t want to get up, don’t want to walk, don’t want to eat, don’t want to drink. We start having pain in the leg, in the arm, in the head. To keep the circulation going in our body, we need to have it. Else we can’t have a normal day.”

Smack is easily available in Nizamuddin Basti. The area’s beggars are often seen walking in a drug-induced daze. Mr Javeri goes to Dilli Gate, in Old Delhi, to get his daily dose, each of which comes for Rs 50. He spends Rs 200 daily on the drug.

“I can do anything for the dose. If I have just Rs 25, I can still get it. If I don’t have money, I pester other addicts to give me some. If an addict has Rs 500, he will invest all of it in the smack. Yet he will not get sakoon (satisfaction). Actually you do get sakoon but it lasts only for a short time. Then you again start thinking about arranging the money. You collect donation, you pick somebody’s wallet, you even attack someone with a knife. But I have never compromised myself.”

During the day, Mr Javeri sleeps behind the shade of Nizamuddin Dargah bus stop. In the evening, he collects ‘donation’ for a few hours. Later, he boards a bus to Dilli Gate where he gets the ‘powder’ from a vendor in a graveyard in Takia Sarai Kale Khan.

Once Mr Javeri had a different life. For ten years he worked as an engineer in a television manufacturing company. His job would take him to different states but once every month he would come to Delhi to get his pay cheque. In those trips to the city, he would see addicts in subways and traffic lights but he thought nothing of them. “I never realized that one day I would end up like them.”

When Mr Javeri lost his job and returned to Benares, his parents married him off. A year later he had a son. By that time he had mixed up with people who were addicted to hashish. He too got into the habit. The family tried to help him get out of the addiction but the attempts failed. “I was sinking in a quicksand. The more I flayed my arms in desperation, the deeper I sank. I was like a child who would look at the direction where he was pointedly asked not to.” Mr Javeri’s parents and brothers started beating him… sometimes in front of his wife. “I could not tolerate it. I left for Delhi.”

It has been ten years since then. “I haven't seen them. In fact, I came to Delhi because it is such a big city. No one can find you here if you want to be lost. And you know I’m a Hindu by birth. My real name is Sanjeev Kumar Singh. There is a reason why I chose this Muslim locality to live. If my family ever comes searching for me in Delhi, they will never think of looking for me here.”

Will they ever search for him?

“I’m confident that sometimes they must be shedding tears for me.”

Does he regret leaving them?

“Sir, there is a saying in Hindi:
Apno ki do baat nahi bardasht kar sakte
Baad mein lakohn logo ki baatien bardasht karte hain.

[While we will never tolerate even two barbs from our own family members,
We are later ready to tolerate attacks by strangers.]

[This is the 22nd portrait of the Mission Delhi project]

Shadow of the self

Lost focus

Arranging money for the dose

This too is life

Life is a smack

Delhi's other drug addicts

Subway addicts

What is to be done?

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