Delhi Diary - December 31, 2008

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Let's meet next year.

[Text by Mayank Austen Soofi; picture by Solveig Bang]

On the last day of 2008, I'll share one of my best and a quintessential Delhi day with the readers of The Delhi Walla. But first: Happy New Year.

1pm: Khan Market. Hey-hi to a friend at Café Turtle. I ask for carrot juice; she orders sweet lime soda.

1.37pm: Café Turtle is expensive. To Sidewok for lunch. The friend is the sugar daddy today. She'll pay. We have dim sum, shredded lamb, Chinese greens and steamed rice.

2.25pm: Strolling in Lodhi Garden. The friend is mumbling sweet-nothings to dogs and birds.

2.32pm: At her bungalow in Jor Bagh. The husband is away at work. So I’m freely snooping around his library while she is preparing the tea. Wow. A lovely edition of Jeremy Paxman’s The English: A Portrait of a People. Should I flick it? But why ruin the friendship?

2.50pm: Just 3-days-old in Delhi, her furniture is still not set. We sit down on the floor to have chai.

2.55pm: A surprise gift for me! I’ll not open it in front of her. Am not a good actor. Wouldn’t like her to see my expression if disappointed.

3.02pm: Second serving of chai. She clicks my picture.

3.15 pm: We trundle next door to Jor Bagh market and enter into The Bookshop but buy no books.

3.28pm: An auto to Old Delhi. Costly ride. The friend has white skin that is screaming, “I have dollars, I have dollars, I have dollars.” But we don’t have dollars.

3.46pm: In Daryaganj. Everyone staring at the friend. Winter-proofed in a black overcoat with head covered in a scarf, she is looking very Iranian. Like a jet setting human rights activist from Tehran whose father must have been a spy for the Shah.

5.15pm: At the spooky tomb complex of Razia Sultan in Bulbuli Khana. No one but us. We sit down and stay quiet.

5.35pm: Walking up the stairs of somebody’s house and climbing onto their terrace. Old Delhi skyline. Birds, kites, birds, kites, birds, kites. Soon it’s prayer time and the sound of Allah hu Akbar swimming out from several minarets. These cries soar up in the air and dissolves into a Beethoven sonata.

6.15pm: At the dargah of Sarmad Shahid. I tell the friend the story of this sufi (loved a boy, roamed naked, sentenced to death).

6.50pm: On our way to Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin. The auto is stuck at a crossing. We click pictures. Even traffic jams can be photogenic.

7.16pm: At Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah. Why is the friend silent? Is she moved by the spirituality of this place?

7.47pm: We want to pee. Onward to Karim’s. They have a clean loo there.

7.58pm: The friend says goodbye and go away.

10.05pm: Back home at my library. Unwrapping the gift. Dried rose petals falling off. Inside: a little green-coloured notepad, handmade in Italy.

Book Review - Curfewed Night, Basharat Peer

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A former Delhi-based journo writes his first book on homeland Kashmir.

[Text by Sumaira Samad; picture by Inigo Arza]

This is the memoir of young Kashmiri journalist Basharat Peer, recounting his youth in the troubled valley during the ’80s and ’90s.

A harrowing look at the political strife and armed conflict that has torn Kashmir apart over the last 30 years, the book is personal. The people, places and events Peer describes are his parents, neighbours and friends.

Yet, despite this intimacy, Peer’s narrative has no polemic, and sentimentality, self-pity, melodrama take a back seat.

Beginning in the years before the struggle, Curfewed Night invites the reader into a peaceful mountain paradise where the slow rhythms of village life make up one’s existence.

Peer lives a happy childhood, surrounded by a loving family and tight knit community. But this serenity is merely the glassy surface, hiding a quagmire beneath. The shadow of Kashmir’s turbulent history and unresolved conflicts never quite goes away, and even in Peer’s childhood, he knows that his home is one struggling for an identity.

Kashmir, Peer tells us, is defined negatively, in terms of what its residents do not want it to be. That is, Kashmiris are certain that they do not want their home to be swallowed up by a larger India that has failed to give them the autonomy, rights and the self-respect that they expected at the time of independence. Kashmir has become the purgatory of the ghosts of Partition.

Peer's memoirs take readers on a journey exploring the hopes and frustrations of the Muslims of Kashmir, focusing especially on the youth and the path of armed struggle that they took to throw the yoke of Indian hegemony.

He shows us through the deeply touching stories of others -- through mothers, sons, poets, militants -- the complexities that are inevitably involved, refraining from presenting a Manichean picture of Muslims versus Hindus, or Islamic fundamentalists versus secularists.

The initial movement for independence, led by JKLF, began as a struggle for an independent, secular Kashmir, neither part of India nor Pakistan. It was also partly a class struggle; the majority of its members came from the lower middle and peasant classes. It was the struggle of a people who had over the years felt alienated from mainstream India, neglected and taken for granted.

This is the story of an agonised people whose lives have been torn asunder by factors beyond their control. Peer ends the book with a note of hope, closing with the introduction of a new bridge across the Line of Control.

Kashmiris, from both sides of the divide, cross this physical and metaphorical bridge, greeting each other with rousing welcomes.

[The author of this review lives in Lahore, Pakistan. A longer version has been published elsewhere]

City Society – Maids in Gay Households

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How do they cope.

[Text and picture of Ms Anima Dungdung by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Delhi is not exactly a gay-friendly city. Here life is complicated not just for the gay person but also for his parents, siblings and… the maid.

After spending three decades in expat households, Jharkhand's Ms Aneema Dungdung thought she had seen the world. She hadn't. On May 1, 2006, she got new masters in Defence Colony. Two American men.

Ms Dungdung presumed them to be friends who slept in the same room. "I was happy since I would have to make just one bed," Ms Dungdung says. The reality hit when another expat memshib told Ms Dungdung that her Def Col sahibs were like married couples. "Aisa bhi hota hai," she exclaimed.

Whether Ms Rani, a maid in Lajpat Nagar, was shocked or not is something Mr Shashi Bhushan is not sure of. A 27-year-old lawyer in Delhi High Court, Mr Bhushan is 'out' to his parents. Lightning struck Ms Rani when his parents were away. One afternoon, while she was mopping the floor, she came across gay porn magazines on his bed. "She was flipping it page by page," Ms Bhushan remembers.

This was tame. Remember the Gujarati maid Kantaben as she discovers Shah Rukh Khan embracing Saif Ali Khan in the 2004 blockbuster Kal Ho Na Ho? Her first reaction was a shiver down her spine.

Real life, though, is different. Ms Dungdung just grew wiser. She watched TV debates more carefully and came to understand more about the "boy-boy couple".

Ms Rani, Mr Bhushan's maid in Lajpat Nagar, was more hyper. She spilled all to the mother. "While Ma defended me, saying it's my age, Rani claimed there were no girls in the mag," Mr Bhushan says. Momma said, "No, no, the girls come in the later pages."

Now when Ms Bhushan has male friends coming, Ms Rani just throws an all-knowing smile.

Since homosexuality widely remains a non-existent issue in Indian society, a few couples manage to evade the looks, smiling or otherwise, of their domestics. Instead, the antenna is better tuned to unmarried men living with women.

In her memoirs On Balance, Justice Leila Seth discusses her son Vikram Seth's sexuality. She describes her anxiety about what servants would think when Vikram would have not a male companion, but a female one.

Most couples I talked to choose to let their maids keep doing the "guess work", since they think sexuality is a private matter. "My maid is dumb if she can't get it, since I rarely have women guests," says a diplomat in Malcha Marg. "But she has a much easier time with me than with her previous employer, who had a wife and children."

Ms Dungdung's employers, too, told her nothing concerning their private life but she grew fond of them. "I saw them as my brothers," she says. "Despite being boys, they would always dress and behave properly when I was around." On September, 2008, the 'brothers' moved to London.

If Ms Dungdung was happy with her sahibs, Mr Bhushan, too, has no complaint with his help. "Rani is a good girl," he says.

City Community - The Wandering Christmas Choir

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On the footsteps of an unsual band of carol singers.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The Aravali hills are alive with the sound of Christmas carols even though the D-day is still two days away.

In the rarefied air of Jawaharlal Lal University (JNU), a tune of guitar-twanged Jingle bells, jingle bells... is soaring up in the air. It is floating somewhere over the Staff Academy Center, a smart brick structure tucked deep into the bowels of the JNU campus.

An incredible sight here – a few of Delhi's most cerebral people making an all-in-good-fun fool of themselves. The chief editor of a big publishing house, a senior journalist, a Physics professor, and their little baba-logs... all playing poo-chuk-chuk in a make-believe Rajdhani Express. The engine is – Santa Claus.

This Santa hasn't been gifted by the Indian Railways. He is a part of a choir group which on the days leading to Christmas is hop-scotching to different localities in the city. At each place, they sing, dance and give a short sermon on the "meaning of Christmas." Yesterday they were in Sukhdev Vihar. Tomorrow they will be in Vasant Kunj.

The choir is unique not just because it has no official name but also because its members, all South Indians, are ordinary muggles in ordinary days. The leading singer-preacher is a GM in AirTel. There is a PhD scholar, an environment professor, an electrical engineer. The guitarist is a... web designer!

"We are all friends with busy lives and find this time of the year a good opportunity to hang out together," says Mr Sunil, the electrical engineer. "Usually we go to each other's houses, have a blast and take Santa to meet their neighbours." A few evenings ago, they were in an Indirapuram apartment where they drew in around a hundred residents.

Here in JNU, the crowd is less.

Suddenly the guitar stops. The leader will now hold a sermon. "It's important," his wife, a choir member, says. "Too many people mistakenly believe that Christmas is the birthday for Santa Claus."

The high-brow crowd shows signs of restlessness. "The music's fine but I do mind the preaching," the publisher tells me on the condition of anonymity. Like most here, she hadn't come for the choir but to celebrate the 8th birthday of a friend's son.

The last song ends with a long sigh. The choir's next destination is Shankar Vihar, an army neighbourhood on National Highway-8 where there are no Christians. That is no one that Squadron leader Angel Rubin or his wife may be aware of. Obviously, they are excited about receiving the choir. "This is an opportunity to socialize not only with fellow Christians with whom we also share a linguistic commonality," he says. "But also to making a bond with our neighbours."

In no time the troupe storms into the living room of Lieutenant Colonel Manish Varma, Mr Rubin's downstairs neighbour, singing Jingle bells...

The Varmas are delighted but also puzzled. The maid appears clueless. It's like a cultural shock to which the family start opening up as the Santa starts dancing. Colonel Varma's old mother starts tapping her fingers. His old father, attired in a monkey cap and a muffler, has returned this morning from the hospital after a surgery. As if on cue, the preacher makes a prayer for the senior Varma's heart.

The next destination is next door to the home of Lieutenant Colonel Virinder Singh in whom the choir finally finds its match.

This Singh looks like a king. Big moustache, broad shoulders, and a booming voice. He take things into his own hands and start jiggling to Bhangra beats(!). Santa is truned to a Daler Mehendi clone. The sight is amazing. It's like Chennai meeting Chandigarh, girijaghar meeting a gurudwara and jingle bells... becoming balle balle.

After a few minutes of 'North Indians-South Indians' bonhomie, the choir leaves for Colonel Rubin's apartment. There they will call off the day. Tomorrow, they will meet at Vasant Kunj. After work.

The moving train



Papa don't preach



Far from the madding crowd



To another place, now



At Colonel Varma's



At Colonel Singh's

City Business - Bahrisons is Expanding

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A south Delhi landmark is coming to west Delhi.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Browsing at the Bahrisons will no longer necessarily mean you are in Khan Market. “In January, 2008, we are opening a branch in Rajouri Garden Main Market,” says Mr Anuj Bahri, the bookseller.

On the face of it, there’s nothing new for a south Delhi establishment to spread to other parts of the city. PVR cinemas, for instance, did that by opening its first not-in-South-Delhi multiplex at Naraina in 2001. Five years later, Basant Lok’s Punjabi by Nature, an upmarket restaurant, opened an outlet at Raja Garden. But Bahrisons’ move to west Delhi is surprising in more ways than one.

First, aren’t stand-alone bookstores, like the Bahris’, dying? It’s hardly six months that Mr Anil Arora shut down his 31-year-old Bookworm at Connaught Place. Second, can a bookstore survive at Rajouri Garden? “People living in west Delhi hardly read,” says Mr Siddharhtha Gigoo, author of two books who lives in… ahem, west Delhi.

“I disagree,” says Mr Pavan K Varma, a Bahrisons regular and the author of The Great Indian Middle Class and Havelis of Delhi. “People in west Delhi read the same newspaper, watch the same soaps and read the same books.”

That may bring down the anxiety level of Mr Bahri. “Yes, it’s a big risk to open a branch in Rajouri Garden,” he confesses. “However, 40 per cent of this city’s population resides in the west and at least 50 per cent of them are affluent and move in the Capital’s known social circles.”

Why, that sounds like a Khan Market crowd.

“There’s a clientele in the west,” explains Mr Varma, “who would like to possess and claim as their own the same institutions which were the monopoly of the south.” Indeed, a highbrow hub on the lines of the India Habitat Center is coming up at Raja Garden.

“Lately we realised that many visitors to the bookstore are from the west,” says Mr Bahri. In fact, an internal survey conducted by him revealed Rajouri Garden as the destination frequented by “upper middle class people.” How could have Mr Bahri missed such an opportunity? After all, he is the son of a Partition refugee who opened this shop virtually without any saving and made it a snob spot on the city’s cultural landscape. “I’m at the Bahris’,” boast quite a few as they loudly ‘whisper’ into the mobile phones while checking out books here.

But Rajouri Garden is not Khan Market. The visitors will not always be expats, writers and jurnos. Besides, are Mr Bahri and his superbly informed staff aware of the reading habits of west Delhi? Would the traditional focus on current affairs work?

“Naturally the collection will be different,” he admits. “We’ll start with a good basic mix; store more on Sikh history, for example, and improvise later.”

That’s good business sense but will not this expansion threaten the shop’s unique character? During its 50th anniversary, founder Balraj had dismissed plans to open a branch. “We don’t want to become a departmental store," he had said. Five years later, son Anuj says, “The Rajouri Garden store is a part of the first phase of Bahrisons expansion plan.”

Perhaps it’s true that stand-alone bookshops are dying.

Come to the other one, too



Great staff



Good luck, Mr Balraj Bahri

City Living - Where is Your Second Home?

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Seeking private spaces in public places.

[Text and picture by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The aftermath of Bombay terrorist attack revealed something curious. The destruction of a public place was mourned as the loss of a private space. I'm talking about Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel.

“Taj was my second home,” wailed many a Bombay Walla. To them, the lobby was their drawing room and the hotel, a home.

What about Delhi? Which public sanctuaries here have grown so endearing to people, over the years, that they feel as if they possess them like their own home? Which enclaves here are marked as private properties in the emotional maps of the city's residents?

The first person I talked to was Mr William Dalrymple. He confesses of ‘owning’ other homes in Delhi beside a farmhouse. “My two second homes are the Mehrauli Archeological Park around Jamali Kamali and the Safdarjung’s Tomb,” says the author of the City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi. “Both these places are my favorite venues during the winter for dog-walks and picnics."

Ruins don’t click with all. “To me, Khan Market is also a private space since it is one of my chief comfort zone beside my Mayur Vihar apartment,” says Ms Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, Editorial Manager, Journals, South Asia, Routledge, Taylor and Francis. “I’m familiar with that market’s landscape, its bookshops and its retailers.”

American artist Mr Alexander Keefe, who lives in a south Delhi barsati, too, has his second home, in a market — Sagar restaurant in Defence Colony.

“Unpretentious, old-fashioned and authentic,” says Mr Keefe of his ‘home’. “I always read my newspaper at the Sagar.” But Mr Keefe feels that this privately owned eatery is not accessible to all. “Those who consider luxury hotels as public spheres are sort of folk who go to uppity galas and exclaim, ‘Everyone is here’.”

Everyone also goes to Qutub Minar. Perhaps, not many are able to relate to it as intimately as a Pakistani diplomat who talked on the condition of anonymity due to protocol obligations. “I feel close to the structure and imagine it in its days of glory when it was a part of everyday life,” he says.

The diplomat who lives in Shanti Niketan has a reason to be envious of thumri singer Ms Vidya Rao. She wakes up each morning, to a window view of Qutub Minar, in her Mehrauli apartment.

However, her ‘second home’ falls inside India International Center (IIC) where she is a member for 16 years. “The attentive staff, the cultural events, the quiet corners and the next-door Lodhi Garden there make me relaxed,” Ms Rao says. “Besides, IIC’s library have these lovely cubicles where you feel as if you are in your own study.”

Does abandoned tombs, restricted-access restaurants and partitioned cubicles constitute home?

“There is a notion of exclusivity around such places and so people find it as special as their own house,” says Dr Deepak Mehta, Reader in department of sociology, Delhi University. “Parks, bars, clubs also tend to become ‘second homes’ because they often are refuges from the drudgery of home."

What about those who forever feel homeless? “Post Bombay attacks, even my own home in Vikram Nagar feels unsafe,” says DJ Iggy who performs at Magique, in the Garden of Five Senses. “Anything can happen anytime, anywhere.” Just as it happened at the Taj.

Photo Essay – Khan Market After Dark

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When life fizzles out of Delhi’s most uppity joint.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

6.35 pm: Peak hour. Noise. Chaos. Screams of 'hi's and hello's.

7.05 pm: People spotting exercise in full steam. Farukh Abdullah, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, inside Dayal Opticals. Rahul Gandhi having a brownie at Barista. Wheeler-dealer Amar Singh picking DVDs at Mercury Audio and Video. Author Manju Kapur browsing at Bahrisons Booksellers. Singer Shubha Mudgal walking hand-in-hand with her husband. B-grade Bollywood actor Shawar Ali wandering by himself.

7.30 pm: Inside Bahrisons booksellers. Someone shuts off the lights. The gorkha guard rolls down the curtain on the entrance door. Another employee brings in his cycle. It will stay inside for the night.

7.46 pm: The Northeastern girls working as stewards at Café Turtle are crossing Subramania Bharti Marg. Their shift hours have ended and now they are walking to Sujan Singh Park bus stop where they will wait for Munirika-bound 623.

7.55 pm: The crowd is becoming thin. Parking attendants are breathing easy. Foreign magazine stall is closing off. A few girls are waving off to auto-wallas outside Gate no. 1. But autos are not stopping.

8 pm: Happy hour at Blanco ends.

8.15 pm: It's like midnight. And in the winter it's chilly.

8.35 pm: The middle lane has emptied out of people. There's just a lone couple lingering outside Chicago Pizza stall (big slices, really fast).

8.47 pm: Not all have gone home. A few are still here. Inside expensive restaurants. Blanco. Chonas. Choco la. A few are also in not-so-expensive eateries. Like Sidewok, Subway and, yes, McDonald's. However, the crowd has thinned outside Khan Chacha ke Kebab.

8.58 pm: There's no customer in Subway's boxy outlet.

9.15 pm: The market is looking as spooky as an empty dance club.

9.30 pm: Café Turtle calls off the day. Downstairs, Full Circle bookstore, it's sister concern, too, follow suit.

9.35 pm: Khan Market is no longer feeling like home.

Market buzz



Bahrisons preparing for the night



Happy Hour ends



No soul here



A quiet meal



Closing time at Full Circle



Pizza?



Kebab?



Goodnight

City Landmark – Safdarjung’s Tomb, Near AIIMS

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The poor man's Humayun Tomb.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

If Humayun's Tomb is the poor man’s Taj Mahal, then Safdarjung's Tomb (1753) is positively the poor man’s Humayun Tomb.

Everything at Safdarjung’s is as it is at Humayun’s, but smaller. The gateway, the dome, the trees. All look less imposing. The grass is less green. Even the pool is dry. It seems no one loves this place. I see no tourists, no lovers, no loners.

This complex is also the site of the head office of the Delhi circle of Archaeological Survey of India. There's a library, too. But I see no employees, no book lovers.

Never mind. I climb the not-so-steep stairs to reach the not-so-high platform. No stunning scenery here. The structure itself looks out of sync with its intended design — like a bad copy of Humayun Tomb.

Why should it be otherwise? After all, Humayun was one of the great Mughals, while Safdarjung was just Oudh’s nawab. Does this make you miss the original?

Don’t fret.

Walk straight through Lodhi Road, and it will take just half an hour to reach Humayun’s.

One of the early Mughal-era monuments, Humayun’s Tomb is often described as the first draft of Taj Mahal. The Taj, of course, is the most dazzling erection the Mughals raised, while Safdarjung Tomb came up during the dying years of the Mughal dynasty.

At first sight, it appears as if there was an attempt to create a Taj replica here but perhaps they ran out of marbles. And gold coins, too. So what we got instead is this seemingly faulty wreck that, sadly, does look like a mausoleum built to honour a less exalted man who did live in less glorious times.

Poor Mr Safdarjung.

If Humayun’s Tomb represent the might of the Mughals then Safdarjung’s mark their decline. But don’t lose heart. Sometimes there is dignity in decline and that peculiar grace can be sensed here, under the soft sunlight of a December afternoon.

Entry fee Rs 5 (for Indians) Time From sunrise to sunset

Touching up



A glimpse of the outside world



Signs of glory



Signs of abuse



Sad but beautiful

Apology – To Ms Anoushka Shankar, the Sitar Player

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A case of mistaken identities.

[Text and picture by Mayank Austen Soofi]

On the morning of September (nooo! November!) 27, 2008, while Bombay was being held hostage by terrorists, I talked to a few eminent Delhi wallas. One of them was sitarist Anoushka Shankar. That’s what I thought. That’s what the name I had stored in my mobile phone address book.

The next day after publishing that article, a reader claiming to be Ms Anoushka Shankar, left a comment on this blog saying,” I'm Anoushka Shankar and I never said these things.”

Impossible. I had talked to Ms Anoushka Shankar.

I was wrong. A few days later I happened to meet Anoushka Shankar, the sitarist, the second daughter of Ravi Shankar, and she confirmed that she was that 'reader'. For evidence's sake, I also took her picture (see above).

Later I called my phonebook’s Ms Anoushka Shankar. Yes, she is Anoushka. No, she is not a sitar player. Yes, she is a writer of children books. No, her name is spelled as Anushka, not Anoushka. No, her name is not Anoushka Shankar. It’s Anushka Ravi Shankar.

Phew.

I don’t mind being accused of bad writing. But I will have no credibility left as a blogger and reporter if I pad up my pieces with false quotes. I seek forgiveness from my readers. And also from Ms Anoushka Shankar and Ms Anushka Ravi Shankar. The mistake was a farce of errors.

Sorry.

Transcripts of the verbal duel between Ms Anoushka Shankar and me:

Anonymous said...
How about the quotes? I assume they are all shams since mine is. I'm Anoushka Shankar and I never said these things. In fact I was in Kolkata when the attacks occurred and not in Delhi, and the whole quote is made up. As far as I know, that's libel. Not sure if you did it yourself or picked it up from somewhere else but I wanted to point it out. I appreciate your posting about the atrocities in Mumbai and I do of course share your sentiment, but please be advised those aren't my words.
Anoushka

Mayank Austen Soofi said...
I guess there must be many Anosuhkas in the world. I talked to the sitarist, Pandit Ravi Shankar's daughter.

Anonymous said...
That was rather apparent thank you very much! Surely no one would be stupid enough to write the way I did after you clearly mentioned you were speaking of Anoushka the sitarist? I'm that Anoushka sitting in a Kolkata hotel waiting to see if we can fly to Delhi tonight after tomorrow's Mumbai show has been sadly cancelled. And I never said those things to you- have we ever even spoken? Kindly remove my quote.

Mayank Austen Soofi said...
It’s bizarre. You sound so convincing. But I talked to Anoushka Shankar on phone yesterday. And yes, she was that Anoushka Shankar. Please send me a proof that you are that Anoushka Shankar and I will issue an apology and also remove that quote. Thanks.

Anonymous said...
How about the fact that I don't live in Panchsheel so you're wrong on that count? Call up the Ravi Shankar Centre in Delhi and ask to speak to me or ask if I was in Delhi two nights ago. Or look at my tour schedule for God's sake. I can't have been in two places at once and I was at a press conference, rehearsal, and party in Kolkata the day of the attacks, and performing there the next day (yesterday).
My next step if this doesn't end will be to have someone from my office or management will contact you. This has been an interesting jaunt into cyberspace as I don't normally respond to these things myself but if you're going to stand by this ridiculous story it's going to get lame. Come on.
I hope you and people you know are safe. Best, Anoushka

Mayank Austen Soofi said...
I stand by my quote. I won't reply more to your comments.

Anonymous said...
Send an email to my work email address, as@anoushkashankar.com
If you go to the website you'll see it's me. And then I'll reply to you and repeat the same thing, which is that you either spoke to someone else or picked this up from somewhere that misquoted OR have made it all up. If you're so sure of your quote you should really check who you spoke to. Or maybe I should since someone is pretending to be me!!!

City Exploration - Park End Colony, Karkardooma

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Exodus from the Walled City.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The story goes that Old Delhi suffered just one exodus when Partition forced many Muslims to leave for Pakistan. But the slow flight since then seems to have gone unrecorded.

I have heard stories of genteel Old Delhi families leaving their Walled City mansions for Yamuna-paar addresses.

Isn't that shocking?

How could you willfully renounce the thrill of living in Purani Dilli? So it is. I know the publisher of a legendary Urdu magazine who left his grand haveli near Jama Masjid for a bungalow in Noida's Sector 21. From the historical quarters of Matia Mahal to the suburban sprawl of Noida!

Is romance dead?

To confirm the death of everything that is beautiful I'm now here in Karkardooma in East Delhi. Someone told me that a neighbourhood here called Park End consists entirely of Old Delhi gentry.

Really? It's hard to imagine Mirza Ghalib's brood in this part of the Capital. This is neither Old Delhi, nor New Delhi. No Pandava palace, no Mughal masjid, no British block.

Folks, this is new New Delhi. Here the Metro Rail construction is in full swing. Huge concrete slabs. Giant cranes. Commuters scurrying past like ants. The rush hour is not yet on, but Vikas Marg, already smelling of diesel, is getting more difficult to cross. I feel the dust settling on my lungs. But all is forgiven for I'm in search of a vanished city.

They say it is visible right from this crossing. I see a masjid. And mysterious it is. No minaret, no dome. The roof sloping and the gate shut.

Koi hai? Knock, knock. Imam sahib appears. He follows me into the prayer hall, and stays on the trail as I go up the spiral staircase. The view here is extraordinary through the green-tinted glass windows. Two ends of Metro tracks, about to touch. Imam sahib, now impatient, shoos me out.

"This is the first DDA-approved masjid in Delhi," says 72-year-old Mr Muhammad Aslam, a retired Customs officer and former Delhi University football captain. DDA stands for Delhi Development Authority, the planning agency for the capital. Mr Aslam is taking a morning walk with neighbours – all, as I learned, came from Old Delhi.

In the beginning, there was a jungle in Karkardooma. In 1985, a certain Mr MM Zaidi, the principal of Anglo-Arabic Oriental College, at Ajmeri Gate, started a residential society here.

Back then the traffic was negligible, the air fresh and only one bus route – 201 from Kodiyapul to Ghazipur Dairy. Maybe that's why the original inhabitants, all professor-advocate types, left the congestion of Old Delhi. "Our families were growing bigger and we wanted sukoon," says Mr Aslam.

Is sukoon to be found in this smoggy slice of East Delhi?

"Oh, yes," replies Aslam. "Here we have open space, large plots and lots of trees." I look around. Such wilderness. Lots of gular trees whose leaves are much loved by goats.

No wonder, these men are happy with the choices they have made.

"Don't you miss morning stalls selling niharis and payas?", I ask.

"Yes, we do," says Mr Aslam. "But in Old Delhi, we acutely missed DDA-approved bungalows."

Got the point, sir.

Delhi's first DDA mosque



View from the mosque window



More view



Happy & healthy in Trans-Yamuna

City Landmark - Fact & Fiction, Basant Lok

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Inside Delhi’s wildly eclectic bookstore.

[Text and picture by Mayank Austen Soofi]

This place has attitude. While other bookshops sex up their appeal by setting in-house cafés, customers here can’t even carry a softy. And no mobile phones, please. In Fact & Fiction, rules are rules. Thank you very much.

Delhi’s most eclectic bookstore faces the Capital’s most popular hangout — Priya cinema in Basant Lok Market. On entering, try not to bother Mr Ajit Vikram Singh, the owner. He is perhaps browsing on his Compaq laptop or reading The New York Review of Books. Else, he is listening to John Mayall on his iPod.

Walk straight, reach the end and turn left. Tonnes of travel books — conventional (Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands), crazy (Dervla Murphy’s Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle), and weird (Kate Marsden’s On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers).

If you are into contemporary fiction, turn back towards the glass door. Rotate the moving shelf and pick the latest Alice Munro or Joyce Carol Oates. You like whodunnits? That too is here. No, you’re into sci-fis? Just turn right.

The crème de la crème is on the lower right side of Mr Singh’s desk. Here you’ll spot the who's who of food writing, from MFK Fisher to James Beard to Michael Pollan.

But it’s not books alone that matters. The store would be nothing without Mr Singh. As a child, he would regularly go to Jor Bagh’s The Book Shop, another charming joint in the city. There he would look around in awe.

After growing up and having his fill of the high life — studying at Mayo College, graduating from St Stephen's and running a sugar factory in western Uttar Pradesh, Mr Singh opened Fact & Fiction in 1983. Since then his shop has built a solid reputation while he himself is considered, by a few, as... how to put it, eccentric.

One guy told me how on asking for a title, Mr Singh “not only frowned but also said that I should make sure the name is correct.” Another blames Mr Singh’s “lack of warm heartedness to him being a real prince of Mayo.” However, I’m told that by the third visit, Mr Singh does start smiling. That is if he likes you.

“Most of my differences happen with customers due to their ill treatment of books,” Mr Singh tells me. “A bookshop requires a certain amount of sanctity and sometimes I have people rushing in with dripping ice cream cones.”

That he is not a chatty type adds to the 'reputation'. It ruffles the ego of those who expect fawning-grovelling treatment just because they have been so kind as to enter his shop. But here Mr Singh is king. And he is kind. If a book catches your fancy and you are not carrying money, he reserves it for you.

Now, back to books. Step back and turn right. Poetry section. Basho. Allen Ginsberg. Anna Akhmatova. A translation of... modern German poetry! Who in Delhi would buy it? “The collection must have a good mix,” Mr Singh says. “Only then readers could discover new writing.”

Over the years, I, too, discovered many authors in this 300 sqft space. Once I discovered a secret attic when Mr Singh walked to the wall behind me and... disappeared! There was actually a false door and inside — I managed a peek — were lots of books.

That was a glimpse worth living for but this place, why oh why, offers no discounts. Naturally, after making your payment, you may not wish to return. Mr Singh needn’t worry, though. If you love books, you’ll be back soon.

Where 39 Basant Lok (Opposite Priya Cinema) Ph26146843

Shhh, they're browsing

Travel - TIPS TO TOES IN SERVICE OF NATION

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A Delhi writer follows Sign Language lessons on the Border Roads.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

She is curvaceous. Feel the curves do not test them. Keep your cool. Self control. Take it easy.

-Darling I like you but not so fast.

To the innocent, such dialogues may seem straight out of a Palika Bazaar VCD. But XXX content it's not. Rather, this love-ly language is from New Delhi writer, Mr Ajay Jain's curiously titled PEEP PEEP DONT (sic) SLEEP, a journey through Indian road signs.

Mr Jain spent 3 weeks in Ladakh on some of the highest motorable roads in the world. His mission: to photograph the many signboards put up by the Border Roads Organisation. DRIVING FASTER CAN CAUSE DISASTER and MIND YOUR BRAKES OR BREAK YOUR MIND exemplify the rhyming couplets and play-on-words that the Border Roads' bard seems to favour.

With his magic quill and penchant for the UPPER CASE, these signs offer the motorist light relief on many a high mountain pass.

Nonsensical arguments (YELLOW TAPE PARENT CRYING), poor language (HTE CAUTIOUS SELDOM ERR), and ad-hoc spelling (CHEAK YOUR BRAKE) are all part of their allure.

Who knows how effective they are? If you are anything like Mr Jain, you run the risk of almost driving right over the edge of a cliff, as you rummage around for your camera.

The book contains visual evidence of the Border Road bard's safety sonnets. From the countless snapped on his Olympus Digital SLR, Mr Jain selected the best two hundred.

Seated in the sedate surroundings of Khan Market's Café Turtle, he confessed certain safety tips have a double meaning.

Of those that made the final cut, the subtextual references of one or two of them wouldn't get past Ms Sharmila Tagore's censor board scissors. DRIVING AND DRINKING A FATAL COCK-TAIL. What is the hyphen in 'cock-tale' supposed to mean? The caption questions. Perhaps Dostana boys John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan are best equipped to answer.

LOVE THE NEIGBOUR BUT NOT WHILE DRIVING. Else? Send the Padosan's husband on a road trip north? Such musings from the bard prompted a US radio channel to ask Jain if PEEP PEEP DONT (sic) SLEEP was suitable reading material for women and children.

Which got me thinking, who is responsible for this literary brilliance?

If picture books can get the Booker, this could well be the next White Tiger. The author himself doesn't seem to know the scribe behind the scrolls. MEN CUT THROUGH THE HILLS BUT JOINS (sic) THE HEARTS. Army people on the road just laughed and shrugged their soldiers, I mean shoulders, when Mr Jain tried to ascertain the identity of Mr. A.N. ONYMOUS.

My guess is, the faceless genius from the Border Roads Organisation is a young testosterone-fuelled soldier stationed at the virgin peaks of the Himalayas. Dreams of his village possibly inspire such verse as, SAFETY ON ROADS IS SAFE TEA AT HOME. His sole companions while erecting these signs, a government issued paintbrush and a well-thumbed copy of the Rapidex English Speaking Course.

But DONT GOSSIP WHILE DRIVING. So I drove straight to the horse's mouth – the office of Border Roads Organisation in New Delhi. "Is there a team of bureaucrats here pouring their brains over the crunchiest line?" I ask. "No, we are not the creative heads," says Colonel Neema, Director, Planning, Border Road Organisation. "These slogans are area specific and are thought upon by the chief engineer of that region who take inputs from workers on the site as well as road users." Got it, Colonel.

My next appointment was with Mr Steven Baker, coordinator of the British Council's creative writing course in New Delhi, about the idiosyncratic style of these notices.

"Indian English has many distinguishing features, these signs or signage (Ind. Eng.) abound in the grammar of this English variety," he says. "The anomalous language use found on the roadside, is perhaps the reason why my jeep driver crashed when I made the trip from Manali to Leh in 2001." Luckily, no one was injured.

As I left his office, Mr Baker reported, "The last English gentleman will be an Indian." Wow. I drove away happy, or in the words of the bard, SMILE BEGENTS SMILE.

Bombay 26/11 Editorial - Rich India's Gravest Hour

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Why should no-star India cry for 5-star India.

[Text by Mayank Austen Soofi; picture by Reuters]

The aftermath of terrorist attacks in Bombay shows that India's social divide is wider than I had imagined.

Suddenly the rich and good-looking Indians of Delhi and Bombay have realised that they, too, perhaps have a stake in the country's political system.

They never cared before. But now it's different.

After all, the Taj was like their second home.

This time the terrorists invaded the rich people's most expensive hotels. The next time it could be their gated apartment complexes. They fear that the political establishment would continue to play its usual blame games.

"You can't trust these netas," the rich people say. One elegant Bombay socialite has talked of carpet bombing Pakistan.

Dangerous times.

You may say that it wasn't only the glorious Taj and Oberoi that were targeted. People were killed in Bombay's railway terminus, too. True. True? All that TV channels showed during the great Bombay siege were the English-speaking Indians and white Westerners of the Taj.

There were bodies of not-so-rich people lying in the railway station but... who cares for the 'natives'?

In different parts of India -- in Kashmir, Manipur, Chattisgarh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, there are millions of Indians who daily suffers the personalised terrorism of so-called freedom fighters, mujahideens, maoists, police officers and Indian army jawans. I have rarely seen south-Delhi-esque Indians lighting candles at India Gate on behalf of those.

Maybe those people don't really matter. After all, they are not bank owners, industrialists, or influential journalists. Those ignored masses usually come malnourished and wear no designer clothes. Maybe that's why they are easy to be ignored.

Of course, no one ignores the wealthy. They are everywhere. Indian newspapers gives an illusion of the entire nation being in outrage over the Bombay attacks. But there is no sound reason for such an assumption.

Why should no-star India cry for 5-star India? The 5-star never cried for them. Now the rich are demanding that India should stand united. Where were they earlier?

If that largely poor and largely terrorised India is still able to feel any sympathy, credit it to the curious concern that the very poor have for the very rich. On their part, the deodorised desis of Malabar Hill and Golf Links never felt strongly enough to lit candles for their less privileged countrymen.

Bombay 26/11 – Life in the Time of Terrorism

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Bombay attacks have changed Delhi.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

New Delhi’s India Gate is one night’s train journey from Bombay’s Gateway of India, and now even that distance has been bridged in people’s minds after the 26/11 terror attacks in Bombay.

On Sunday, a day after the siege at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower ended, ex-hotelier Mrs Anupama Jaiswal, 31, took her husband and daughter for an outing to Dilli Haat. But Mumbai never left her mind. “I knew Taj hotel’s GM very well,” she says. While having samosas at the Delhi Tourism stall, she suddenly thought what if someone opened fire in the crowd. “People would die in the stampede, if not gunfire.”

Mrs Jaiswal has spent almost all her life in Delhi, a city with a terror history older than Mumbai’s. This time, however, the extraordinary execution of the Mumbai attacks has changed all her conventional notions about terrorism. “Sarojini Nagar regulars used to be targeted, but now you have the super-rich, too, in the list,” she says. “No place is safe.” Including Vasant Kunj where Mrs Jaiswal lives. “We have two entrances in Sector B-5 here but terrorists can easily break in and take us hostage in our own homes. We can do nothing.”

The magnitude of the Mumbai attacks has made Mr Fida Nizami, a student in Dayal Singh College, almost fatalistic. “You’ll die when your time comes,” he says. In the thick of the Mumbai battle, he went shopping to Lajpat Nagar Central Market, a bazaar that has seen its share of bomb blasts. “Anyone can shoot us there,” says Mr Nizami, “but you need to be brave.”

It is perhaps this mix of courage and fatalism that makes people carry on with life in these difficult times. It helps if you are from an already troubled region. “Being a Kashmiri Pandit, terror is not new to me,” says communications expert Mr Siddhartha Gigoo, a Dwarka resident. “I witnessed terror in Kashmir in the 90s.” Mr Gigoo usually spends weekends shopping in Gurgaon malls or having a lazy meal in Connaught Place restaurants. He won’t change the way he navigates in the city. “We need to be more vigilant,” he says. “But we must live as we live.”

Maybe that’s why Mr Sumantha Roy, an IT professional, did not defer his Sunday morning schedule. “I had my sex as usual,” he says. “But I also had NDTV switched on to keep myself updated.”

Mr Roy, whose friend’s employee was badly hurt in the shootout at Leopold Café, feels strongly about his way of life. On the second day of Mumbai attacks, he went for a Chinese meal at Lee’s Garden at GK-I M block Market. However, on Saturday night, he also lit a candle on his flat window to express solidarity with those whose loved ones died in Mumbai.

“If we are terrorised, we shouldn’t hide ourselves,” Mr Roy says. “We shouldn’t show them we are scared, or they will think they are supreme and will then bomb us more.”

That fear is keeping Mrs Jaiswal in continued anxiety. “I love going with my husband to The Imperial hotel in Janpath,” she says. “Next time we’re there, it could be our last meal.”

Life goes on, yet...

City Secret - Chabad House, Paharganj

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A home for travelling Jews.

[Pictures and text by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Jewish skullcaps. Hebrew graffiti. Rabbi's hat tucked on the wall. Welcome to Jerusalem.

Now come back to Delhi. We never left. It's just Paharganj and we are in Chabad House, a sort of a Jewish community club.

With headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, Chabad Houses are established all over the world. Look for it in touristy places visited by Israelis. There is a Chabad House in Dharmshala, in Pushkar and one such was at Bombay's Nariman House. On November 26, 2008, it was attacked by terrorists and its caretaker couple were killed.

With the tragedy still resonating in newspapers, I walked into Paharganj bylanes in search of Delhi's only Chabad House. It used to be in a room at Hare Rama Guest House but now... it's not there!

"It shifted," the receptionist said. He guided me to a street lined with internet cafes and a few steps later I spotted a signboard — Chabad House.

Perhaps what McDonald's is for travelling Americans, Chabad House is for Israelis — something familiar in a foreign land. A home away from home.

Israeli backpackers on their way to Dharmshala or Goa usually make a stopover in Paharganj hostelries and it is in this Chabad House that they drop by to celebrate Jewish festivals like Hanukkah and Passover. If there's no special occasion, they simply gather together to share the weekend Sabbath meals.

Where are they today?

With its bookshelves, low tables and wooden chests, the hall appears to be a meditative retreat but it's empty. I climb another set of stairs. Here is a large cooking range and beside it is standing a large hairy man. Emmanuel, a tourist from a town near Haifa, has just returned from Himanchal and has barged in the Chabad House to spend a quiet afternoon. He knows the couple who takes care of this place. "They have gone to Mumbai after the murder of the Rabbi there," he says.

"Can it happen here, too?" I ask.

"My friend, many people are worried," Emmanuel says, looking straight into me. "The most we can do is pray." He leads me to the prayer hall. "See, this is just a room but it is so lovely, so calm because of what you feel each time you are here."

Emmanuel opens a cupboard and shows me holy scrolls that I'm not allowed to touch. "It's read only during the festivals," he says with some pride.

Emmanuel is obviously a man in love with his religion but I'm told that non-observant Jews, too, come to Chabad House to be among their own in this alien land. "Here we pray, eat and rest together," says Emmanuel. "This is a precious getaway."

Considering that there are only 10 Jewish families and one synagogue in Delhi, this Chabad House is indeed precious. After Mumbai attacks, it appears endangered, too. Delhi must never lose it.

Jew spotting



The narrow path



Inside Chabad House



Maid in Israel



Lost in translation



Shalom