Netherfield Ball – Barkha Dutt's Book Reception, The Taj Mahal Hotel

December 12, 2015, 1:54 am

≫ Next: City Style - Rakhshanda Jalil's Ghararas, South Delhi

≪ Previous: City Food - Muhammed Sajid’s Yellow Sooji Halwa, Turkman Gate Bazaar

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The party secrets.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

It was an exceedingly posh party. The capital’s cold toxic air smelled of expensive perfumes. Almost every important person was there except for the Prime Minister. He was not missed.

One evening The Delhi Walla attended the launch of news anchor Barkha Dutt’s book, This Unquiet Land: Stories From India's Fault Lines, at The Terrace Garden in The Taj Mahal Hotel. It was a rare public gathering of some of the country’s most influential politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, authors and artists.

Former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah sat on the front row beside jurist Soli Sorabjee. Mr Abdullah’s son, Omar, also a former chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir, was in one of the back rows. Dressed in a dark grey suit, he was seated with news anchor Nidhi Razdan. They were very chatty with each other but suddenly grew quiet on being approached by a paparazzo.

Seasoned politician Digvijay Singh arrived minus his wife, Amrita Rai, a television journalist whom he married early this year.

But Ms Dutt’s suave boss, media baron Prannoy Roy, entered the venue with his famously media-shy colleague and wife, the beautiful Radhika.

Novelist Vikram Seth sat with mummy Leila, retired Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh. Immediately behind them was seated author Aatish Taseer, who behaved like a sort of elegant creature that one could not keep one’s eye from. Mr Taseer was with mummy Tavleen Singh, a very, very famous columnist. The mother and son arrived separately but left together.

Ms Singh’s archenemy, the glum-looking Mani Shankar Aiyar, a former cabinet minister, was seated on the same row. Just three people separated them. It did not help that Mr Aiyar’s immediate companion was author Gurcharan Das. Since Mr Aiyar is an elite English-speaking socialist and Mr Das is an elite English-speaking capitalist, they had nothing in common with each other. So, they did not exchange a single word.

The star attraction was perhaps Delhi’s Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, leader of the Common Men Party. He arrived with his deputy, Manish Sisodia. It is rumoured that the duo is always seen together. Here, too, they were seated next to each other. As always, Mr Kejriwal coughed his way through the evening.

Also spotted: publisher Chiki Sarkar, who sat alone; publisher Diya Kar Hazra, who was with husband, journalist Indrajit; Congress leader Sachin Pilot, who came without his wife, the lovely Sara; craft revivalist Laila Tyabji, who is believed to have a great collection of handloom saris; Common Men Party leader Ashutosh, an anti-corruption crusader, who was seen in deep conversation with Rajeev Shukla, the chairman of Indian Premier League and one of the most important persons in Indian cricket. There was also actor Shabana Azmi, with a flower in her bun; she was with husband, poet Javed Akhtar.

There were no radical outfits to be seen though quite a few women were draped in beautiful shawls. But Chief Minister Kejriwal, the political face of Delhi, was wearing socks with... sandals! That was the evening's only scandal.

Prime time views

1. (Barkha Dutt, center)



2. (Vikram Seth with Leila Seth; back, Tavleen Singh with Aatish Taseer)



4. (Prannoy Roy)



5. (Radhika Roy)



6. (Arvind Kejriwal, coughing)



7. (Barkha Dutt with Digvijay Singh)



3. (Aatish Taseer)



8. (Laila Tyabji)



9. (Sachin Pilot)



10. (Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar)



10a. (Mani Shankar Aiyar, right, and Tavleen Singh had only three people between them)



11. (news anchor Maya Mirchandani)



12. (Chiki Sarkar)



13. (Rajeev Shukla, left, Ashutosh)



14. (Omar Abdullah, Nidhi Razdan)



15. (author and journalist Shahid Siddiqui, right)



16. (Arvind Kejriwal's fashion faux pas)



17. (Barkha Dutt with news anchor Sonia Singh)

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City Style - Rakhshanda Jalil's Ghararas, South Delhi

December 12, 2015, 1:55 am

≫ Next: City Faith - Hanukkah Candles, Paharganj

≪ Previous: Netherfield Ball – Barkha Dutt's Book Reception, The Taj Mahal Hotel

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Searching for the stylish.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Strange outfit this. It’s neither a skirt, nor a gown. It’s definitely not a sari. It’s also not a pajama.

What is it?

“It is gharara,” says author Rakhshanda Jalil, pronouncing the ‘gh’ in a special deep-throat voice.

The Delhi Walla is at Ms Jalil’s home in south Delhi. Her most precious wardrobe is a treasure-house of about two dozen ghararas. Most have come down to her from her mother and mother’s mother; a few are even older.

Indeed, Ms Jalil has a fascination for souvenirs of the past. One of her many books is the beautifully titled Invisible City: The Hidden Monuments of Delhi. These ghararas, too, are fast becoming invisible. It will be a great astonishment to see a Delhi Metro commuter in a gharara, although Ms Jalil is often spotted wearing it in literary gatherings. Years ago, she had worn a hot pink gharara for her wedding. Her two young daughters also put it on during special occasions such as... well, weddings, especially Muslim ones, that too in the smaller towns in Uttar Pradesh, where more people are likely to be similarly attired.

It is not unusual in Delhi weddings to see women in gharara’s sister dresses, such as lehenga, a kind of skirt with a wide hem, and sharara, which is like flared pants with two legs. Gharara is more complicated. It has two legs but each leg is comprised of two parts. The first goes down from the waist to the knee, and the second, which is much wider, begins from the knee and descends down to the foot.

Truth to be told, Ms Jalil prefers saris and trousers for her ordinary wear. But it was the daily costume of her maternal grandmother, Zahida Suroor, who lived in the nearby university town of Aligarh. “In my grandmother’s time, it was common for women to wear cotton ghararas made of chintz (called chheent by Urdu speakers) at home,” says, Ms Jalil. “Silk or satin ghararas were worn on formal occasions. And the heavy brocades, called kamkhaab, were worn at weddings."

Each gharara should have its own set of kameez and dupatta, though these days one has more liberty to do a happy mix and match. Ms Jalil gets away with it. She says that traditionally an entire gharara could be sewn in four or five days. Each piece was stitched by hands. The entire hem was turned in with tiny invisible stitches. Sparkling bits of gold lace were tagged to camouflage the joints at the knees.

Ms Jalil’s mother, Mehjabeen Jalil, recently hand-stitched a red gharara for her. The happy daughter had a trial run at a dinner in her own home. There was much applause. The gharara came with a short white shirt. The red dupatta was lined with gold frills.

In the old days, women of a family gathered together to sew a gharara if it had to be made for, say, a bride's trousseau. Neighbors and friends also chipped in. Opinions were eagerly sought on the design, and the leftover cloth was never thrown away. It was instead used to make an accompanying batua (wallet), or jootis (sandals), or even juzdan, the elaborate wrap for the Holy Quran.

There was a time when a few cities were known to make special types of ghararas, says Ms Jalil. Benares was famous for its brocade ghararas where master-weavers painstakingly transported the exact design of the dress's heavy brocade onto a lighter gauzier material for the accompanying dupatta. Lucknow was favored for patchwork designs called chatapati. Our own Delhi specialized in something called 'farshi'. It used to have a long train, which the women were supposed to hold delicately in their arms.

Perhaps the most ideal way to study this old-world costume is to ask the wearer to sit still. On request, Ms Jalil settles down beside a window with an Eric Segal novel. While the book belongs to her elder daughter, Aaliya, the gharara belongs to her mother’s mother’s mother. Made of atlas (no relation to the book of maps), the fabric is so fragile that it tears at the slightest tug.  It has a blue background with yellow, orange and pink flowers. At one point, Ms Jalil looks out of the window. Her gharara then ceases being a dying tradition, and seems as much a part of her present as her own heartbeat.

This dress should not die

1. (Rakhshanda Jalil in her great grandmother's gharara)



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5. (Rakhshanda Jalil with daughter Aaliya)



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14. (Rakhshanda Jalil with her wedding gharara)

City Faith - Hanukkah Candles, Paharganj

December 21, 2015, 10:46 pm

≫ Next: Atget’s Corner – 886-890, Delhi Photos

≪ Previous: City Style - Rakhshanda Jalil's Ghararas, South Delhi

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The Temple memories.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

It's the light of Hanukkah, the weeklong Jewish festival that enters its penultimate day this cold evening.

The Delhi Walla spots the customary candles of Hanukkah in Main Bazaar, a market in the hotel district of Paharganj. The candles are mounted on the menorah. The traditional nine-branched Jewish candle-stand is placed just across the road from Vishal Hotel.

Hanukkah commemorates the re-dedication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BC. It is rare to see the public face of this festival in Delhi. After all, the city has only two dozen Jews, only one synagogue—it is near Khan Market, and only one Jewish graveyard, next to the synagogue. But there are also two Chabad Houses, the popular Jewish community centers spread across the world. One is located here in Paharganj, largely patronized by travellers from Israel, and the other is further south in Vasant Vihar, said to be frequented by foreign diplomats.

As the aforementioned Hanukkah candles in Main Bazaar go unnoticed by the busy passers-by, a pavement vendor of handbags puts up his stand in front of the menorah and hides its view.

Hanukkah, however, is on view elsewhere in Paharganj. There are Hanukkah candles in Yes Sir Guest House, and also in Hotel Arjun. One unlit menorah is placed outside Raza Tea Stall. The Shelton hotel offers the most mesmerising sight. The reception desk has Hanukkah candles placed in front of Lord Ganesha.

On the last day of Hanukkah, the Jewish Delhiwallas will mark the end of the festival with the traditional meal of sufganiyot (doughnuts) and latkes (potato pancake). The rest of us can always come to Paharganj to see the final day's Hanukkah flames.

Hanerot Halalu

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Atget’s Corner – 886-890, Delhi Photos

December 21, 2015, 10:46 pm

≫ Next: City Landmark - Chor Bizarre, Asaf Ali Road

≪ Previous: City Faith - Hanukkah Candles, Paharganj

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The visible city.

[By Mayank Austen Soofi]

Delhi is a voyeur’s paradise and The Delhi Walla also makes pictures.

I take photos of people, streets, flowers, eateries, drawing rooms, tombs, landscapes, buses, colleges, Sufi shrines, trees, animals, autos, libraries, birds, courtyards, kitchens and old buildings. My archive of more than 25,000 photos showcases Delhi’s ongoing evolution. Five randomly picked pictures from this collection are regularly put up on the pages of this website.

The series is named in the memory of French artist Eugène Atget (1857-1927), who, in the words of a biographer, was an “obsessed photographer determined to document every corner of Paris before it disappeared under the assault of modern improvements.”

Here are Delhi photos numbered 886 to 890.

886. Patel Nagar



887. Janpath



888. Ballimaran



889. Ajmeri Gate



890. Tughlaqabad

City Landmark - Chor Bizarre, Asaf Ali Road

December 21, 2015, 10:47 pm

≫ Next: City Faith - Thursday Evening, Hazrat Turkman Shah's Dargah

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A trip to Kashmir.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

If you throw a few stones standing somewhere south of Khan Market, you might not hit many Delhiwallas under a certain age, but you are likely to hit many who’ve heard of Chor Bizarre—a fixture on any write-up to do with the Capital’s fine- dining scene.

Now past the grand old age of 25, Chor Bizarre is more familiar to visitors and expats than to the locals. Its mystique remains intact. On a recent evening in Hotel Broadway, which houses the Kashmiri cuisine restaurant, a professor from Italy was giving a woman from Delhi a quick tour of the place.

The restaurant occupies a unique location—it stands at the point where New Delhi gives way to the old city, on Asaf Ali Road, just a hop and skip from the Walled City. The quirks of Shahjahanabad spill over; Broadway stands next to the sex clinic Taqat Shafikhana.

For a whole generation, Chor Bizarre has been the coolest thing in this part of town. The slow gentrification of Old Delhi could in the future dent its status as the best hang-out here. There could be a bit of competition from Dreamers Café, which opened atop a four-storey building on Asaf Ali Road two weeks ago, giving patrons views of the nearby Connaught Place and the kite-filled skies of Old Delhi. But if such newcomers can deftly repackage the Delhi experience, our classic restaurant has mastered the art of survival through reinvention.

A part of Broadway, Chor Bizarre is the flagship property of Old World Hospitality, which also runs the award-winning restaurant Indian Accent and the eateries at India Habitat Centre.

Stepping into the dimly lit restaurant is like entering into a time when our mothers were young maidens and dreamed of marrying Hindi film actor Dev Anand. Old Hindi songs from his era play non-stop. One can’t sit through a meal without hearing at least one Mohammed Rafi song from Dev Anand’s film Guide. These romantic songs have become white noise for the stewards. One of them says he notices the music only when the CD player stops.

A few staffers have been with Chor Bizarre since it opened in May 1990. Shamshad Ahmed has been here since 1991. Devendra Kumar, who knows the name of every regular and remembers every detail of their eating preferences, arrived in 1990, when the restaurant didn’t exist and Broadway’s in-house guests dined upstairs in a no-frills hall. Kashi Ram has been a waiter since 1978. These long-time servers give the restaurant its courtesy, class and gravitas. As the world outside changes furiously, this place has stayed unchanged.

It must be said that the onslaught of international and regional cuisines on Delhi’s restaurant scene hasn’t completely wiped out the traditional hot spots. The colonial-era Connaught Place retains some of its early landmarks such as Kwality Restaurant, The Embassy Restaurant and The Host. Neither has the city lost its culinary institutions in five-star hotels, such as Orient Express, which opened at the Taj Palace in 1983, or Bukhara, which opened at the ITC Maurya in 1978. Chor Bizarre is also not the oldest restaurant on Asaf Ali Road. That honour goes to Bhaja Govindam in the nearby Delite Cinema building, a decade older than its neighbour and a lifeline for vegetarians lost in the carnivorous lanes of Old Delhi.

Yet Chor Bizarre is special in many ways. There’s no place like it in Old Delhi—the legendary Karim’s at Jama Masjid can hardly be described as a fine-dining experience and the forlorn-looking Moti Mahal near Golcha Cinema is past its best days. Chor Bizarre is also the only swish restaurant in the city to offer Kashmiri cuisine (after Kashmiri Club at The Ashok Hotel shut down long ago), though the menu here also includes north Indian dishes.

Also, Chor Bizarre is that rare Delhi establishment whose clone has managed to make its presence felt in a truly world-class city. Located in London’s exclusive Mayfair district, it was opened in the UK by group chairman Rohit Khattar, who had set up the first Chor Bizarre. Four years ago, The Independent included the London outlet in its list of “100 Best Restaurants in London”. The New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman called it “just as wacky as it was in its original location in Delhi”.

The Delhi outlet is decked up with all the madcap curios you’d expect from a place whose name puns on Chor Bazaar, or the Thief Market. Each table is different. One has sewing machine pedals. Another has Kashmiri jewellery displayed under its glass top. The salads are arranged on a vintage car (see top picture). The walls have framed portraits, some of which look like covers of Victoria Holt romances. One shelf has a complete set of Lenin’s speeches. Talking of books, one of the best stalls of the famous Daryaganj Sunday second-hand book bazaar is set up every week right outside Chor Bizarre.

The restaurant’s signature platter is Tarami, a copper plate comprising rice and Kashmiri dishes such as tabaak maaz and haakh. The more elaborate wazwan is set up on advance order. Actor Sharmila Tagore attended one here a few weeks ago. Actor Shashi Kapoor would always drop by during his visits to the Capital. The hotel’s senior general manager, Pratik Sinha, who has been involved with the restaurant since its inception, says, “Shashi Kapoor would always say politely in pure Hindustani that ‘Janab (sir), what will you serve me today... Give me whatever you feel like, but please give it from the heart.”

The restaurant’s waiters recall the luncheon visit of Pakistani leader Nawaz Sharif in 1991; he had come to Delhi to attend Rajiv Gandhi’s funeral.

You’d have to be really unlucky if your dinner at Chor Bizarre passes without spotting a single Page 3 face. One evening, the Turkish ambassador and his wife were seen dining with publisher and bookseller Anuj Bahri Malhotra. Another evening, artist Shuddhabrata Sengupta was seated with author Aman Sethi.

The big chunk of the restaurant’s revenue, however, doesn’t come from its regulars, some of whom have been coming here for generations, but from group tours of foreign tourists who come for lunch.

The story of the afternoon clientele mirrors the changes in the area. Initially people working in the pharmaceutical companies situated on Asaf Ali Road would drop in for lunch. There were also brokers from the nearby Delhi Stock Exchange, where the trading came to a stop at the turn of the century because of negligible turnover. It resumed its activities in 2009 but was derecognized by the Securities and Exchange Board of India last year.

By then, most companies in the vicinity had moved out to the satellite towns of Gurgaon and Noida, causing a steep drop in the lunchtime sales. The management addressed the crisis with a decision that transformed Chor Bizarre’s character. Travel agents were aggressively sold the idea that the daily sightseeing bus groups should head to the restaurant right after the stop at the nearby Gandhi Samadhi in Raj Ghat, where most groups conveniently reach just around lunchtime.

Since Westerners can’t be expected to survive the restaurant’s deliciously heavy and spicy food, a special three-course meal was devised. For instance, the Murga Maska Marke, essentially butter chicken, has absolutely no red chilli powder. But Sinha assures us, saying, “The food served to the rest of our customers is made as per SOP (standard operating procedure).”

Meanwhile, the management may change its tune for the first time in 25 years. “We’ve been playing film songs from the 1960s and 1970s all these years,” says Sinha. “But now we have a new generation coming to our restaurant and for them it’s the Rishi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan songs of the 1980s that are the golden oldies.”

This could mean that very soon Raat Chandni Mein Aur Tu might be followed by I Am A Disco Dancer. Warn your mother.

Dark and delicious

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2. (Davender Kumar, food & beverage executive)



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5. (Tarami platter)



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7. (Shamshad Ahmad, captain)



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10. (Nandan Mehra, steward)



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14. (Sagar Kumar, steward)



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City Faith - Thursday Evening, Hazrat Turkman Shah's Dargah

December 21, 2015, 10:47 pm

≫ Next: Netherfield Ball – Amartya Sen's Reception, India International Center

≪ Previous: City Landmark - Chor Bizarre, Asaf Ali Road

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Beyond qawwali.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Every respectable Delhi guidebook tells you to visit the Sufi shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya on Thursday evening, aka jumeraat, the big night before the Islamic sabbath. That's when the qawwal musicians offer their sacred music in the shrine’s courtyard, the guidebooks proclaim.

The aforementioned shrine is indeed jam-packed on said evenings. The qawwali performance makes for a memorable experience. But qawwalis are offered every evening in the shrine. The singers are less theatrical on other days when they are not obliged to focus their energies to meet the heightened expectations of the secular masses. There's more depth then.

The Sufi music is also performed in Delhi’s many other dargahs. A true snob will avoid the Thursday crowd at Hazrat Nizamuddin’s dargah for some other unsung shrine, whose evenings are not celebrated by our city’s writers, flâneurs and bloggers.

One excellent place to plan an experience is the shrine of Hazrat Turkman Shah near Ramlila Ground. This dargah consists of just an ordinary-seeming room. The saint’s marble tomb is at the center. (The Delhi Walla wrote about the shrine here).

On every Thursday evening, Hazrat Turkman Shah’s grave is decorated with a great amount of marigold flowers. To be sure, his devotees never manage to fill up the small shrine to capacity but they continue to stream in throughout the long evening.

Since qawwalis are not performed here regularly, the jumeraat crowd consists of people who visit the shrine purely out of spiritual and religious motivations. To watch them offer personalized prayers to the Sufi saint helps a curious visitor to get intimate with the raw mysteries and puzzles of faith. Some pilgrims sit and cry, some sing, some light incense sticks and some seek blessings from the shrine's caretaker, who puts on a yellow cap on Thursday. One might miss the fleeting exhilaration as promised in the guidebooks but the sentimental impact of the quieter evenings experienced in the capital's lesser-known dargahs, such as Turkman Shah’s shrine, stays longer in the heart.

The marigold experience

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Netherfield Ball – Amartya Sen's Reception, India International Center

December 21, 2015, 10:48 pm

≫ Next: City Moment - The Poetry Candle, Ghalib Academy

≪ Previous: City Faith - Thursday Evening, Hazrat Turkman Shah's Dargah

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The party secrets.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

It was very unsettling. Nobody was air-kissing anybody. One evening The Delhi Walla went to the India International Center to hear Nobel laureate Amartya Sen talk on his new book, The Country of First Boys.

In a most abominable sort of indifference to decorum, a great crowd of unknown young men and women decided to breach the respectable Delhi tradition of arriving late. They started to pour into the lobby of the Multi-Purpose Hall two hours before Mr Sen’s arrival. Some were even spotted earnestly reading his aforementioned book(!) A most unusual sight in events of such kinds.

All these overeager people had sacrificed their evening for an author whose books exist outside the world of pleasure reading. Indeed, some of the boys and girls looked like tomorrow's intellectuals who would go on to cultivate a career on the op-ed pages of The Hindu and The Indian Express. They were excitedly tossing terms like 'poverty index' and 'economic inequality' at one another.

It was difficult to spot any familiar face, however. A handful of grey-haired people looked like those famous names whom people like us have never heard of. They were probably JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) academics.

The evening’s only respite was the sightings of a few society figures. The suited Gopalkrishna Gandhi, a grandson of the Mahatma, looked as dapper as a Wall Street banker.  The fragile Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, a granddaughter of the Mahatma, walked forth slowly with seemingly immense effort, her bird-like arm being led by her assistant. In her virginal-white handloom sari, she looked like our ideal self-sacrificing Indian woman of a certain class, the kind you might have seen by the dozens in Richard Attenborough’s Oscar-winning extravaganza.

Shockingly, there was not even a minor flutter when late author Khushwant Singh's daughter, author Mala Dayal, entered with her daughter, history professor Naina. They always flit around the town in a team of two, and they hate being photographed (see photo no. 14 below).

Other notable sights: one hijab-wearing woman held a bag that showed the Eiffel Tower of Paris. One elderly man wore a dhoti in a style that was immortalized by Rajesh Khanna centuries ago in the film Amar Prem. A man of decidedly foreign extractions (he had Basmati rice complexion) proudly sported earphones around his neck as if they were the queen's necklace.

Also spotted: Communist Party of India (Marxist, not Leninist) leader Sitaram Yechury.

Moments after the hall was opened and the multitude rushed in to claim the best seats, Mr Sen arrived. (At least, he reached late.)

The big shock: the economist’s car was not big.

Mr Sen wore a blue shirt and red tie. Despite looking wondrously frail, he walked on without assistance and was swiftly guided into an elevator that took him to some other floor. That was odd because the venue was on the same floor. But the Lady Gaga treatment demands the drama of being needlessly hauled through a maze of lifts, galleries and halls before the breath-stopping moment of landing on the stage. The world-famous economist humbly played it along.  

No poverty talk please

1. (Amartya Sen)



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3. (Gopalkrishna Gandhi)



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5. (Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee)



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7. (Sitaram Yechury)



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14. (Mala Dayal with daughter, Naina)



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City Moment - The Poetry Candle, Ghalib Academy

December 21, 2015, 10:48 pm

≫ Next: City Food - Daulat ki Chaat, Gali Kallan Kahar

≪ Previous: Netherfield Ball – Amartya Sen's Reception, India International Center

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The remarkable Delhi instant.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

It was time for poet Gulzar Dehlvi, who was seated on the stage, to perform his duty.

One evening The Delhi Walla was at the Ghalib Academy in Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti. A mushaira, or a meeting of Urdu poets, was about to began, in which the poets were to read out their poems on the stage. A number of Delhi's eminent verse writers were present; they included Iqbal Firdausi, Munir Hamdam, Rauf Raza and Javed Niyazi. Each had a badge pinned on the chest, which said ‘Poet’. The two women poets of the evening were Iffat Zarreen and Shabnam Siddiqui.

A giant wax candle was placed in front of the stage. In the old times when there was no electricity, and hence no mike, Delhi’s nighttime poetry meets--and they almost always took place during the nights—were held in the glow of a solitary candle. The room remained immersed in darkness, while a flickering lamp was placed beside the poet whose turn it was to read from his works.

The auditorium inside the Ghalib Academy, however, glowed in white light. There was also a podium and a mike. But the tradition demanded the candle to burn continuously over the course of the evening. The venerable poet Gulzar Dehlvi was given the honor to ignite the flame. He got up and lit the candle with a cigarette lighter. This was a signal to get on with the evening’s task. The audience cheered. It was a beautiful moment.

The flame of Delhi Poetry

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City Food - Daulat ki Chaat, Gali Kallan Kahar

December 21, 2015, 10:49 pm

≫ Next: Photo Essay - Delhi Feet, Around Town

≪ Previous: City Moment - The Poetry Candle, Ghalib Academy

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The snow dish.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Is it a snowy desert, or a dessert?

One winter morning The Delhi Walla came across street food vendor Kamal and his Daulat ki Chaat on Gali Kallan Kahar, a Walled City lane. This fabled dish of milk and cream is extremely delicate, and seems to be composed of nothing but froth, which you fear might disappear any moment. In 2011, I wrote about Daulat ki Chaat here, saying: "Much romance is attached to the making... One legend is that the milk is whisked under a full moon sky and the morning dew sets the resulting froth."

The vendor Kamal, too, had prepared it early in the morning. The sweet dish was arranged on a silver platter. There it lay whole, intact, waiting for its first customer. Scooters and rickshaws went past the cart one after another. A pack of mules, too, trotted forth stirring up dust.

The dish was covered in a white net to keep off the flies. Kamal carefully lifted it up to give a clearer view of his Daulat ki Chaat. It looked like an Arctic landscape of freshly whipped cream. After a minute or so, he pulled it back over the dish. He then pushed his cart deeper into the hopeful morning.

Barely here

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Photo Essay - Delhi Feet, Around Town

December 21, 2015, 10:49 pm

≫ Next: Home Sweet Home – Pratyush Pushkar’s Residence, Hauz Khas Village

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The low life.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Hello feet. So, what do you plan to do today? Why not again go to Salim Bhai’s tea-stall in Kucha Chelan and have chai in one of his disgusting white plastic cups?

Will you pay respects to yet another dead rat on the road?

Are you still naughty, stopping beside dirty foreign magazines at the Sunday Book Bazaar in Daryaganj? In any case, I don't want you to lose your flamboyant nature. Please show off your beautiful body again in some South Delhi party as you did a couple of nights ago? Or, at least bitchily compare your shoe-dress with that of your more glamorous rival?

By the way, aren't you tired of lounging at Ajay Guest House in Paharganj?

I wonder if you have finally found a home or you still sleep beside your tired shoes at that night shelter for the homeless in Chandni Chowk. (Do you still have your afternoon siesta at that wildish garden outside Humayun's Tomb?)

Come on, feet, be honest, do you still flaunt your Mexican tattoo in your wild Nizamuddin West roof-top bashes?

And have you grown out of Emily Dickinson? Are you still crazy about the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Second Edition?

No, I'm not telling anyone but I hope you have stopped contemplating suicide from your Gurgaon high-rise.

Between us, can I ask a delicate question please? Just how it is like to be infested with maggots, and then beg in Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti?

And dear feet, will you again step over somebody’s abandoned Happy New Year card as you did early this year? Please don't.

Look at the feet

1. (Ghaffar Manzil)



2. (GB Road)



3. (Nizamuddin East)



3a. (Mehrauli)



4. (Chandni Chowk)



4a. Ajay Guest House, Paharganj



5. (Chankayapuri)



5a. (Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti)



5b. Deer Park



6. (Curzon Road)



7. (Gurgaon)



8. (Daryaganj)



9. (Chirag Dehli)



10. (Barakhamba)



10a. (Outside Humayun's Tomb)



11. (Kucha Chelan)



11a. (Nizamuddin West)



12. (Blue Line, Delhi Metro)



13. (Daryaganj)



14. (Sujan Singh Park)



15. (Outside Hazrat Turkman Shah's Sufi Shrine)

Home Sweet Home – Pratyush Pushkar’s Residence, Hauz Khas Village

April 20, 2016, 3:14 am

≫ Next: City Moment - The Woman in the Anti-Pollution Mask, Khan Market

≪ Previous: Photo Essay - Delhi Feet, Around Town

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Inside the walls.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

His home is like his Facebook page; it has writings on the walls.

One freezing evening The Delhi Walla knocks on the door of photographer, musician and poet Pratyush Pushkar. His dimly-lit home in South Delhi’s Hauz Khas Village is a minute away from the dream-like monuments of Hauz Khas. One of the domed tombs almost touches his cramped balcony (see photo no. 10 below). But no such sight is to be seen from the windowless bedroom. Here the world has expanded beyond Delhi. Read the bedside wall:

Bossanova (here)
Road (Goa)
Spirit (Spiti Valley)
Aaj Jaane ki Zid Na Karo (Everywhere)
Love (Mama Guaga, Rishikesh)
Light and Balance (Lake of Pushkar)

This black marker poetry of place-names was written by a Spanish woman called Sara Sierra. In fact, Mr Pushkar travelled with her to all these places. “Most of the messages on my walls were written by Sara,” he says. Lying on his single bed, he says, “I first met her six years ago in Pushkar (Rajasthan).”

It turns out that Ms Sierra was here recently. She stayed for a month and left three weeks ago. It was not her first time in Delhi with Mr Pushkar.

Presently, however, a traveler from the Balkans is seated in the drawing room. Lighting up a cigarette, Mr Pushkar says, “To be frank, a lot of people have passed through my home but Sara has stayed. She is always here.”

The facing wall, too, has a few lines:

“If I had cut his wings,
He would be mine,
He wouldn’t fly away.
But then,
He wouldn’t be a bird anymore
And me. What I love..
So much it’s the bird.”
-- Taxoria txori—Joan Baez & Mikel Laboa

“Sara wrote it,” Mr Pushkar says.

In some ways, this house has the appearance of an art installation that aims to depict the intimate territory of an urban artist. The corridor that runs past the bathroom and kitchen feels like an exhibition gallery. The wall there is decked with some of the many photographs that Mr Pushkar has taken over the years. In his 30s, he makes his living by giving lectures on “photography, poetry, art, artists and survival” in colleges across India. Mr Pushkar is also the founder-director of Delhi Arts Foundation, which, he says, aims to connect the artists of India and Europe.

The drawing room props include a number of musical instruments. At one point in the evening, Mr Pushkar begins to play daf. He later slouches down on the sofa, and over cigarette smoke, again talks of his friend. “I’m soon leaving for Spain to give a lecture in Valencia. Sara is from that city.”

He looks like as if he is already with her.

Inside an artist's heart

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City Moment - The Woman in the Anti-Pollution Mask, Khan Market

April 20, 2016, 3:15 am

≫ Next: City Faith - Midnight Mass, St James' Church

≪ Previous: Home Sweet Home – Pratyush Pushkar’s Residence, Hauz Khas Village

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Love in the time of pollution.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The evening air is pleasantly chilly. Fairy lights are strung around the trees. It will soon be Christmas. The Delhi Walla is in tony Khan Market. A kiosk has come up beside Mercury Audio Video. It is stocked with a rather new sort of consumer product: premier filtering face masks to 'Breathe Clean Air'. This is certainly a thoughtful service for the doomed inhabitants of the world's most polluted city.

Not soon after a woman in a dark-blue blazer is seen walking flamboyantly on the market's Front Lane. She looks elegant in her French béret and tomato-red jeans. But her face is invisible. She is wearing an anti-pollution mask, almost the same sort as is now available in Khan Market.

The woman briefly stops in front of Bahrisons Booksellers, but continues to walk ahead. She turns to the Middle Lane and enters the stairs going up to Café Turtle. There, she orders lemonade and, at long last, she removes her mask. She is beautiful beyond belief.

The woman finishes her drink, and as she gets up to leave, she again puts on the mask.

She walks down to Full Circle Bookstore, which is in the same building, and flips through Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s book Convenient Action: Continuity for Change. A minute later, she keeps it back in the New Arrivals section. She goes down and walks back to the Front Lane. She enters Faqir Chand & Sons bookshop but doesn't buy anything. Next, she steps inside Good Earth store. But it has closed for the day. She comes out, and suddenly she starts to run towards the market’s exit, as if she has recalled something urgent.

Suddenly, the woman stops. She turns, waves her arm, and then again she starts to run away. Soon she disappears. There is now nothing but smoggy air. It is a terrifying moment.

A beauty in the smog

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City Faith - Midnight Mass, St James' Church

April 20, 2016, 3:16 am

≫ Next: Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Living Poets Society, Ghalib Academy

≪ Previous: City Moment - The Woman in the Anti-Pollution Mask, Khan Market

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Holy night, cold night.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The night sky was not clear enough to show its thousands of stars but the white moon glowed radiantly. That was hardly a comfort.  It was freezing cold.

The Delhi Walla witnessed the arrival of Christmas by attending the Midnight Mass at the historic St James' Church in Kashmere Gate. Till The Cathedral Church of the Redemption came up in Lutyens's Delhi in 1931, St James’ was the viceroy’s church.

The main building was decked with blue and orange fairy lights but the front lawn was immersed in darkness. The entrance was being guarded by gun-wielding cops. The gate was closed. It was utterly quiet as people silently gathered in groups of threes and fours. One man wore a Santa cap. Its pointed top limped like a bent tower. A few young people took Selfies of each other.

The gates opened half an hour before the beginning of the service.

Unlike a few other Delhi churches, where the scale is too majestic, the surroundings at St James' are intimate. It's more like a neighborhood chapel. The dome rests on an octagonal arcade and the circular space under it is where the congregation sits. At 12, the bell rang, and the ceremony started. There were barely a handful of worshipers to begin with. Two priests appeared. Soon more people arrived. Almost all came either with their families or with friends. One elderly man sat alone. There was also a man with a Sikh turban.

Immediately below the communion table is the tombstone of Colonel James Skinner, the military adventurer who gave his name to the church. The son of a Scottish military officer and a Rajput mother, Skinner is known for the two cavalry regiments he raised for the British army in India. In 1800, lying wounded on a battlefield, he vowed to build a church if he survived. St James’ Church was the result. Its front row, once reserved for the Skinner family, is called Skinner’s Pew — you may still run into a Skinner descendant at the church (like The Delhi Walla did a few years ago).

At one stage, as the older of the two priests passionately discoursed on a certain point in his homily, a few children looked bored. One little girl went to sleep. One little boy ran up the aisle. His mother followed him. A woman frowned at the indiscretion.

During the revolt of 1857, when hundreds of Britishers were killed in the streets of Delhi, this church was badly damaged. Its books were destroyed and records burnt. Later, when the British crushed the rebellion, a giant cross was installed in the church garden in memory of the dead.

The night progressed slowly. Passages were read from the Bible; carols were sung. The church was filled up with the soft, barely perceptible, hum of the congregation. This felt more mournful than festive.

Towards the conclusion, the younger priest prayed for our country’s President, Vice-President, Prime Minister as well as for our city’s Lieutenant General and Chief Minister.

The service ended after an hour. The worshipers solemnly greeted Merry Christmas to each other in low voices. A table with a white cloth was set up outside; there were two trays of biscuits, and steaming chai was served in white plastic glasses.

In God we trust

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Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Living Poets Society, Ghalib Academy

April 20, 2016, 3:16 am

≫ Next: City Life - Gilli Danda Players, Mehrauli

≪ Previous: City Faith - Midnight Mass, St James' Church

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The world of Urdu poetry.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Three men sat in the front row. The rest of the house was deserted; the rows of chairs looked like empty bookshelves. The three seemed unperturbed. Verse has no deadlines and never lacks an audience, for there are always at least a few whose souls need poetry at the end of a prosaic day.

Within the next hour, the auditorium at the Ghalib Academy began to get livelier. Poets arrived, joining the three who were there first. Members of the audience too trickled in, among them a kebab vendor and an elderly, homeless man. The stage was now ready for a mushaira.

It was being held in the memory of a Delhi-based poet, Musheer Jhinjhanvi, who died 25 years ago. The poets invited were to recite verses composed especially for the occasion.

Fewer than a dozen women were present, and there was just one woman on stage. Feminist poet Iffat Zarrin is Mr Jhinjhanvi’s daughter. She came from her home in Old Delhi in an autorickshaw.

While there will always be people fearing the imminent demise of either Urdu or poetry or both, the flame continues to flicker in this corner of central Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti. Founded by philanthropist Hakeem Abdul Hameed in 1969, the Ghalib Academy has a library and museum devoted to the 19th century Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib, whose marble tomb stands next to the building. Informal meetings of writers, poets and critics are held in a basement hall every second Saturday. But it is the 200-seater auditorium that constitutes the soul of the academy. This is where the lyrical language flows.

A group of five poets who get together every night at the Suleman Tea Stall in Old Delhi’s Chitli Qabar Chowk told The Delhi Walla that the Ghalib Academy hosts the maximum number of Urdu poetry recitations in Delhi. Poetry meets are also held at some other places, such as the Urdu Academy in Kashmere Gate, the Ghalib Institute near Bal Bhavan and the MA Ansari Auditorium in Jamia Millia Islamia.

“The season has just begun,” says poetry critic Aqil Ahmad, the long-time secretary at the Ghalib Academy, one December afternoon. His institute, he says, hosts an impressive 30 mushairas annually. Most of them are held from November to April. It’s not only the touch of winter that makes couplets more palatable than usual; the main reason for the increased bustle is very banal. Literary organizations that depend on doles from the Union ministry of human resource development need to spend their money before the close of accounts in March.

The mushaira in Mr Jhinjhanvi’s memory, for instance, was being organized by the Saeem Educational Trust. A day earlier, a poetry session had been held during the book launch of Naseem Afsar, an Urdu poet from Jharkhand. It was organized by the Ansari Islamic Culture Centre.

For poetry lovers, these are unnecessary details. What matters is the thrill of making your way through the chaotic lanes of Nizamuddin Basti and entering the quietude of the Ghalib Academy’s auditorium, where a minor galaxy of poets is seated cross-legged on stage. In front of them burns a giant wax candle, a tradition from a bygone era when there was no electricity and no mike and a candle was placed in front of the poet whose turn it was to speak next.

A regular at these evenings can always count on finding more than one familiar favourite. The audience is likely to see at least some of the notable poets who keep the flag of contemporary Urdu poetry flying in the Capital.

Waqar Manvi of Old Delhi’s Gali Sooiwallan is an ustad shayar, or a master poet. Almost every budding poet who wants to be taken seriously goes to him to fine-tune his or her talent. Zafar Moradabadi, who lives in the same neighbourhood as Manvi, is the founder of the influential Mehfil-e-Gangojamun, a literary society that holds poetry recitals in Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi. The elderly Naseem Abbasi, who lives in Nizamuddin Basti, writes in the classical style and recites his poems in the tarannum, or singing, tradition. Ahmad Ali Barqi Azmi, who recently came out with a new book, is a Persian scholar. It is said that if you spend just 2 minutes with him, he will shower you with elegant verses about you. Renowned for his melancholic lines, Shahbaz Nadeem Ziaee of Old Delhi’s Ballimaran will not be seen this season; he is hospitalized with a serious kidney problem.

Then there is the suave Gulzar Dehlavi. In his 90s, the regal-looking Urdu poet from Noida, near Delhi, has cut down on his appearances, but when he is in the auditorium, it is difficult to concentrate on anybody else. The grand old man is always dressed like Jawaharlal Nehru, complete with white sherwani and red rose. His flawless Urdu diction is a delight to listen to even if you can’t follow the language.

The best account of the old-style mushairas is perhaps found in Mirza Farhatullah Baig’s novel Dilli Ki Akhri Shama; its English translation is titled The Last Musha’irah Of Delhi. The book has the fictional recreation of a poetry gathering that was the norm in the twilight years of the Mughals. Even after the dynasty disappeared, the soirées remained a part of the Delhi way of life.

Author Rakhshanda Jalil, who hosts monthly chat sessions with Urdu poets and writers at the Oxford Bookstore in Connaught Place, says mushairas in Mughal-era Delhi were held in homes, large compounds, even the Town Hall in Chandni Chowk, or Red Fort. They would start after the evening prayers and would go on till the early hours.

Unfortunately, they have remained a male domain. Women poets can only be seen occasionally at the Ghalib Academy’s poetry gatherings. “It’s not always kabil-e-izzat (dignified) for a woman to be on stage,” says Ms Zarrin. “Quite often, men in the audience look at you with a gandi nazar (leers), and sometimes you sense that from poets sitting beside you too.” Ms Zarrin also regrets a propensity among male poets to spread rumours about women poets getting their verses secretly written by others.

Even so, female poets such as Ana Dehlavi and Saba Aziz take part in at least two mushairas held at the Ghalib Academy during the season.

These evenings could also do with more knowledgeable audience members, people who understand the tradition and have a feel for the language. Present-day audiences often commit the grievous sin of clapping! This indicates ridicule, not applause, at an Urdu poetry gathering.

The couple of elderly poets I talked to waxed lyrical about the crowds that used to come until two decades ago. “There was a time, barkhurdar (gentleman), when the audience would utter ‘wah wah’ or ‘bahut khoob’ at the right places,” says poet Iqbal Firdausi, who lives in Old Delhi’s Baradari and routinely attends mushairas at the Ghalib Academy. “But now they embarrass you by applauding at the wrong parts. People no longer understand Urdu well.”

Photographer Noor ul Huda Nizami, the official photographer of the Ghalib Academy’s programmes since 1988, makes the same point about a decline in numbers and quality. He mourns that the standard of poets too has fallen drastically in the past few decades. The view is shared by others.

“Why blame the mushaira?” asks Ms Jalil. “We deserve the poets we get. Isn’t poetry supposed to hold up a mirror to society?”

Though the spell has weakened, the verses still have their power. And the most important date on the Urdu poetry calendar is Mirza Ghalib’s birth anniversary, on 27 December. It is a landmark day. Flowers will be offered at Ghalib’s marble grave. Candles will be lit at Ghalib’s last house in Old Delhi. The Ghalib Academy annually host a special recital of the poet’s verses on this day, which always end with a dinner of chicken korma and chicken biryani, a Ghalib Academy tradition.

The action intensifies in the weeks ahead. Delhi’s biggest annual mushaira will be held on 17 January at the Red Fort grounds. At the Ghalib Academy, the season will continue.

O my poet, that line again

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11. (Photographer Noor ul Huda Nizami, the official photographer of the Ghalib Academy)



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City Life - Gilli Danda Players, Mehrauli

April 20, 2016, 3:17 am

≫ Next: City Travel - Puraini Village, 100 Miles from Delhi

≪ Previous: Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Living Poets Society, Ghalib Academy

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The forgotten game.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

It looks like cricket but it isn't cricket. It is gilli danda, a game not commonly seen on Delhi's streets. Even so, one winter afternoon The Delhi Walla sees a group of young men playing it at Zafar Mahal, a Mughal-era monument in Mehrauli.

The game is not even a part of the Commonwealth Games. The dependable Wikipedia condescendingly calls gilli danda an “amateur sport’ that “is played with two sticks: a large one called a danda, which is used to hit a smaller one, the gilli.”

The players at the Zafar Mahal are all from Mehrauli. They look like college students but actually they are people with working lives. Vaibhav Midha is a dholak player in a music orchestra. Ankit Gosai is a cab driver. Prateek Arora works in a hospital. Mohit Thurkral is a travel agent—he speaks fluent French.

“We play gilli danda only sometimes and that too in the winter,” says one of the players.  Gilli danda, another explains, doesn't have the concept of teams.

A new series starts. The players take up positions around the ruin. One of the young men throws the colorfully-painted gilli towards the man holding the danda. The latter’s danda hits the gilli with such great force that it flies away to a neighboring roof. In other words, it is gone for good. There are groans of exasperation. One of the players is dispatched to a nearby grocer's shop to quickly get a new gilli. Meanwhile, the boys pass the time sitting around an unknown person's grave.

The danda lies forsaken near another unknown person's grave.

Beyond cricket

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City Travel - Puraini Village, 100 Miles from Delhi

April 20, 2016, 3:18 am

≫ Next: City Landmark -- Hem Raj Jain Clinic, Paharganj

≪ Previous: City Life - Gilli Danda Players, Mehrauli

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A perfect world.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Tall rose bushes grow in every house. Walls are painted with most brilliant colors. A well is overgrown with wild grass.

The Delhi Walla is in Puraini, a village about a hundred miles from Delhi. This is the heart of the sugarcane country in western Uttar Pradesh. The foothills of the Himalayas are somewhere very close. But the village has folded itself into its own world.

The place is as unreal as a morning dream. Old houses are built as if they have been effortlessly weaved out from arched niches and carved doorways. Painted brick walls have metamorphosed to more interesting shades. In the courtyard of one such home, a blue kerosene lamp hangs precariously beside a rust-colored kitchen door, while a timid dog hungrily eyes at the used dinner plates piled up under a hand pump. The dog is too thin, must be a stray.

On a lane outside, another stray is snoozing beside a wall that is decked up with the afternoon shadow of a leafy tree.

Close by, a woman is chatting to a man.

The well around the corner is too dark to indicate the extent of its depth. A man is lying beside it. He is wearing a cap. The winter sunshine is falling softly on his grateful face.

In front of the well: a bullock cart laden with sugarcanes slowly goes past a Maruti Suzuki. On an adjacent lane: a group of sari-clad women appears. They are talking fast but in low voices. The women turn into another lane and are no longer seen. But their talking sounds can still be heard.

One of the passageways fades into a mud track that leads to a sugarcane field.

Everything is so quiet and still in Puraini.

Surely, this village cannot be idyllic. This is India, after all. There must be separate enclaves for Hindus and Muslims. The unprivileged caste groups might have their own well. And the womenfolk, no matter what their religion or caste, must sit down to dine every night only after feeding the men. Even so, the illusion of a perfect world is remarkable. There is nothing like this to be seen in Delhi.

Is this for real?

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City Landmark -- Hem Raj Jain Clinic, Paharganj

April 20, 2016, 3:18 am

≫ Next: Atget’s Corner – 891-895, Delhi Photos

≪ Previous: City Travel - Puraini Village, 100 Miles from Delhi

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The dream palace of a doctor.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

An elderly man is patiently looking out into the street through a curtained glass window. He is dressed in a three-piece suit, complete with a tie. The 63-year-old Vinod Kumar Jain—MBBS, Gold Medalist—awaits his next patient.

The Delhi Walla meets Mr Jain, a “general practitioner”, one evening in the hotel district of Paharganj. His clinic, opposite the now-closed Imperial cinema, is soaked in the ambiance of a previous world. The wood paneled walls date back to 1953 when the clinic was set up by Mr Jain's father, Sumer Chand Jain. The Senior Jain, too, was a “general practitioner”—he had named the clinic after his father who was a hakeem in a village near Delhi.

The clinic's interiors look like the cozy lobby of a family-run hotel, though it is as tiny as a neighborhood grocery. Glass cabinets are lined with handsome wood. There are also two chambers—one is labelled ‘Dispensary’, and the other is ‘Examination Room’. The dispensary’s counter is built like a cinema's box office window.

Mr Jain's patients tend to be too preoccupied with their fevers and aches to notice the formal dignity of his clinic or his dress. Even so, it is almost impossible in this city to come across a doctor’s establishment as stately as Hem Raj Clinic, and a doctor as immaculately dressed as Mr Jain.

The doctor lives in the nearby town of Faridabad and commutes daily (Sunday excluded) on the metro train.

After examining a child, and a middle-aged man, and sending them off with medicines, Mr Jain is left alone in the clinic. He again turns his unhurried gaze towards the glass window.

Of another time

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Atget’s Corner – 891-895, Delhi Photos

April 20, 2016, 3:19 am

≫ Next: City Notice - State of The Delhi Walla, Website Stats

≪ Previous: City Landmark -- Hem Raj Jain Clinic, Paharganj

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The visible city.

[By Mayank Austen Soofi]

Delhi is a voyeur’s paradise and The Delhi Walla also makes pictures.

I take photos of people, streets, flowers, eateries, drawing rooms, tombs, landscapes, buses, colleges, Sufi shrines, trees, animals, autos, libraries, birds, courtyards, kitchens and old buildings. My archive of more than 25,000 photos showcases Delhi’s ongoing evolution. Five randomly picked pictures from this collection are regularly put up on the pages of this website.

The series is named in the memory of French artist Eugène Atget (1857-1927), who, in the words of a biographer, was an “obsessed photographer determined to document every corner of Paris before it disappeared under the assault of modern improvements.”

Here are Delhi photos numbered 891 to 895.

Also read:Death Notice – Fact & Fiction Booksellers is Closing

891. Fact & Fiction, 1984-2015



892. Fact & Fiction, 1984-2015



893. Fact & Fiction, 1984-2015



894. Fact & Fiction, 1984-2015



895. Fact & Fiction, 1984-2015

City Notice - State of The Delhi Walla, Website Stats

April 20, 2016, 3:20 am

≫ Next: City Season - Living With PM 2.5, Lodhi Gardens and Elsewhere

≪ Previous: Atget’s Corner – 891-895, Delhi Photos

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The 2015 accounts.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. The Delhi Walla was a respectable run-up. The website was viewed about 820,000 times in 2015. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 35 days for that many people to see it.

The website was viewed about 580,000 times in 2014.

The busiest day of the year 2015 was December 10th with 30,361 views. The most popular post that day was Netherfield Ball – Barkha Dutt's Book Reception, The Taj Mahal Hotel.

These are the posts that got the most views on The Delhi Walla in 2015:

1.Photo Essay - People Like Us, GB Road

2.City List - Mughal Kings, First to Last

3.City Hangout - Night Time Delhi, Around Town

4.Netherfield Ball – Barkha Dutt's Book Reception, The Taj Mahal Hotel

5.Delhi Metro - JLN Stadium Station, Near Lodhi Road

Most visitors came from India. The United States and United Kingdom were not far behind.

My aim this year is to make The Delhi Walla a home where it can be archived safely for all time to come.

City Season - Living With PM 2.5, Lodhi Gardens and Elsewhere

April 20, 2016, 3:20 am

≫ Next: Photo Essay – DL Number Plate, Around Town

≪ Previous: City Notice - State of The Delhi Walla, Website Stats

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In the world's most polluted city.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Walking in the Lodhi Gardens in central Delhi is always beautiful. This winter, particularly, do look out for that misty haze of PM 2.5 enveloped around the 14th century tombs, which dims the visibility and adds mystery to those aged monuments. The garden walkers get all the romance even as their life span reduces a little.

Yes, it has all come down to PM 2.5.

If you don’t know what it is, you are probably one of those lucky people who don’t live in Delhi, where this purely technical-sounding term is fast becoming a part of our everyday conversation. The Dictionary of Environment Microbiology calls PM 2.5 a “Designation by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for airborne particulate matter that is less than 2.5 micrometer in diameter; associated with industrial and residential combustion and vehicle exhaust; also termed fine particulate.”

One afternoon The Delhi Walla was in Nehru Park. The sky was blue, the grass was green and trees were full of leaves. You could not really see PM 2.5 but it must be there in the air, to be sure.

That Delhi is the world’s most polluted city, even more than Beijing, was attested in a study of 1,600 cities released by World Health Organization in 2014. The Capital was found to have the most toxic air on the planet.

In late 2015 while delegates in Paris were seeking compromise on climate change, and Madras faced its worst-ever flood, and people in Beijing were being asked to stay indoors because of the bad air, the story in Delhi turned out to be even worse than we had thought.

Delhi’s air pollution was one-and-a-half times worse than in Beijing over the course of a week. This was the analysis of IndiaSpend, a data-driven website. “The average weekly PM 2.5 concentration in Delhi’s air was 230.9 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m³), giving it a ‘very poor’ rating of air quality under the guidelines of the Central Pollution Control Bureau (CPCB). The rating could lead to ‘respiratory illness on prolonged exposure’… Beijing, by comparison, recorded a PM 2.5 concentration of 139.7µg/m³ during the same period,” the analysis said.

If things don’t get better, Delhiites will sooner or later adapt themselves to the new normal.

One evening during the course of a book launch event, the city’s Chief Minister was spotted suffering from his infamous coughing attacks. Seated in the terrace garden of a five-star hotel, Arvind Kejriwal blamed his coughing to the capital’s toxic air. After which, he went on to explain the decision of his government to introduce the odd and even registration number driving rule for cars that started on the first day of 2016.

The desperate scheme has been planned as a test-run that will be tried for two weeks. Later in the evening, while the chief minister was asked one uncomfortable question after another about this anti-pollution move, the avenue around the hotel was hit by a traffic jam.

At that moment Delhi felt like a Titanic that had already hit its iceberg.

Death by PM 2.5

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9. (But I can't see PM 2.5!, Nehru Park)