Photo Essay – St Stephen's College, North Campus

The Delhi walla's pretension in writing makes me want to lodge a bullet in his balls - Blogger Nimpipi, the woodchuck chucks
GO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIES
Contact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.



This institution's snob value is worth it.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

One morning, tired of wandering in tombs, forts, bookshops, malls, I went to a college campus instead. Not just to any college. St Stephen's, in north Delhi, is a glass bubble fantasy. It's the south Delhi of Delhi University. Snobbish.

Here's no noise, no dust. Just trees, hedged pathways, redbrick structures and English-speaking kids, rumored to be some of the country's brightest. (Wikipedia has a list of 'distinguished' Stephanians.)

Here you may think you are in a century-old English garrison. Not true. The building is as new as New Delhi, constructed during the 40s. Don't be disappointed. Keep wandering aimlessly. At St Stephen's, unlike other colleges in Delhi, anyone can go in, stroll around, and lie down on the grass.

Yes, even walk down the corridors. No problem. But don't stare at the classroom windows. Lectures maybe on.

However, if there is an empty hall, step in. The vacant benches and the portraits of dead professors make the surroundings as silent as a... well, tomb (!). If that's not spooky enough, try this: at the grounds is an old well, now locked inside a rounded structure. Peer through the dusty window and you will find stairs going down. Spooky.

Hurry down to the college chapel, circa 1952. Potted flowers guard its heavy wooden doors. Tiptoe in. If you're as lucky as me, you might find a beautiful girl reading a novel. Else you may read yours.

By now you may be feeling hungry.

The college has a mess for its hostel students. Yet I sneaked in. What a sight! Ceiling fans, framed portraits, and bearers laying out the tables. A special elevated dining area for teachers. The scene was straight out of Harry Potter's Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. However, being a muggle, not a Stephanian, I was shooed out.

So I walked down to the college canteen... oohps, sorry! At St Stephen's, there's no canteen. But café. I've never been to Calcutta coffeehouses but they must be like this one. Wicker chairs, ageing stewards, bone china plates, and forks 'n' knives. Bilkul English. No self-service, no samosas.

While I waited for buttered toasts (Rs 5), 'mince' (potato patty, Rs 10) and scrambled egg (Rs 7), Shraddha Shah, a Stephanian, started chatting to me. "It's not about the food here," she warned. "Here, you spent hours reading a novel and no one asks you to leave."

Lovely, but the food, too, was not bad. (So what if the mince was cold and the coffee too sweet.)

And did I mention there's a site for another kind of nourishment? The auditorium gallery, nicknamed Passion Corridor, lies in front of the teachers' room. It is often used, I'm told, by romantic couples to 'make out', but "only in the evening when the teachers' room is closed and it's dark."

Lucky folks.

Luckier still are the hostel students – residents in Stephen's-speak - who get to live in this bubble. But please don't grudge these 'resis'. A few years of debate, drama, dancing, literature, sex and then they would be out in the real world. Let them have their fun for now.

The beautiful chapel...



...and a girl inside



More girls outside



The silent lecture hall



The covered well



No mess in the mess



The cafe society



More cafe people



Shh, she's reading



Shh, they're playing



Shh, they're listening



Truly snobbish



Yet, well-grounded



Class time



The passion corridor



Wrong spelling!

City Secret - Blood Letting in Old Delhi

The Delhi walla's pretension in writing makes me want to lodge a bullet in his balls - Blogger Nimpipi, the woodchuck chucks
GO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIES
Contact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.



Here illnesses are cured by slashing the body with blades.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Kamini Khatoon lives in Amroha, a small town near Delhi. She was suffering from body ache for many years. Khatoon consulted doctors, visited hospitals, tried allopathic and homeopathic medicines. She even travelled to sufi dargahs. The pain did not leave. Then someone suggested visiting Rahat Open Surgery, an open-air clinic under the shadow of Jama Masjid in Delhi.

Mohd. Gyas is a kind 70-year-old man. The genial hakeem made Khatoon stand in the sun for 20 minutes. Later, his son, Iqbal Bhai, tied her left leg with a strip of cloth, took out a brand-new Topaz blade, made a cut on her foot, and let the blood rush out. The next morning the son did the same to her left arm. Again she had to first stand in the sun--apparently to make the blood flow more easily. The next day it was the leg's turn again. Then arm. Leg. Arm. Leg. The silsila continued for a few days each month. Khatoon now claims the pain has disappeared. It's magic.

Body ache may sound like a rather vague ailment. Mr. Gyas showed me the testimonial of a woman from Canada who says her blood cancer was cured here. In gratitude, she donated iron benches for his patients.

But how does the hakeem do it? "Impure blood is the root of all ailments. Get rid of it and you are well again," says Mr. Gyas proffering several diaries filled with similar testimonials by grateful patients from all over (Egypt, Canada, Japan…) who say they were cured of everything from headaches to blood sugar…creaky knees…dicky tickers.

Although he started his professional life as spare car parts salesman Mr. Gyas has been bleeding patients for the past 25 years and says it runs in his, well, you know… He learned the skill from his grandfather. Since he is suffering from Parkinson's, it is now his son who handles the actual treatment. A strange tradition is being handed over to the new generation.

[I wanted to ask Mr. Gyas if he could cure Parkinson's with this bloody method but I restrained in respect]

Where Near Dargah Hare Bhare Shah, Gate No. 2, Jama Masjid (9899150523) Timings 9am-12.30pm Charge Rs 30 per sitting

What illness, madame?



Aunty, don't be scared



Bleed me, heal me



Bleed me more



The aftermath



Us, scared!

City Watch – The Twin Worlds of GB Road

The Delhi walla's pretension in writing makes me want to lodge a bullet in his balls - Blogger Nimpipi, the woodchuck chucks
GO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIES
Contact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.



The many faces of Delhi's red light district.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Early in 2009 I Googled GB Road, Delhi's red light district, and got a shock of my life. The search page showed me sitting between two prostitutes!

What if Mummy Papa see this picture? They're a god-fearing couple living in a grey-coloured trans-Yamuna apartment. How would they understand that I had visited the kothas, a few months ago, just for the sake of reporting? That I had simply done a story, clicked a few pictures and it's that which is circulating in the net.

If such a scene ever arises, let my parents know that GB Road is more than just its first-floor kothas. It has Connaught Place-like corridors, Purani Dilli-esque havelis and even a HDFC bank - tucked right next to a Madame's establishment.

GB Road also houses a branch of the labour union Bahrtiya Mazdoor Sangh, plus a temple, a mosque, a school. In case you need a water closet, GB Road, as I'm told, happens to be India's biggest market for bathroom fittings. It's easily accessible, too: just a minute walk from the New Delhi railway station (Ajmeri Gate side); just next to the Anglo-Arabic Model School.

Despite having such 'respectable' trappings, GB Road, officially named after a sage – Swami Shraddhanand, is unable to get rid of its 'red light' tag. How could it? After every few shops, there's a signboard warning, "Beware of pick-pockets and pimps."

Besides, you see the ladies opening soliciting men for emergency love from their windows upstairs.

But a category of men whom they never bother are the shopkeepers downstairs. Watching these traders carry on with their business under the garlanded portraits of their black-and-white ancestors is rather odd. Do they know that just above their showroom is going on the business of the world's oldest profession?

How do these two universes live together?

Most shopkeepers refused to talk. Finally, one agreed. Dressed in a muddy-brown coat-pant and speaking in a perfect Eton school accent, he, however, refused to give his name and refused to talk about the ladies. Instead, he started discoursing on, of all things, Pearl S buck's novel The Good Earth.

My attempt to steer the talk to GB Road's red-light stardom offended him. "Shopkeepers are the most honourable people of our society and we have never touched, never talked to these women," he said. "The women, too, never come to our shops."

Maybe he was right. A few months ago I had gone... well, upstairs to a kotha and there the women had talked of freely moving around the city – Sitaram Bazaar, Connaught Place, Mehrauli and also, Golcha Cinema – but not the bazaar downstairs.

"Most men who come to GB Road instinctively raise up their head to look at us but these men are never the shopkeepers," said one of the women I talked to. "We, too, never make a pass at them."

So here we are. The shopkeepers and the sex workers manage to exist next to each other only by pretending that the other doesn't exist.

And yet, there is one bond that unites these two worlds – the children of the sex workers. One afternoon I saw three little school students, big heavy bags bending their backs, walking hands-in-hands. An elderly shopkeeper beckoned them with his fingers and offered toffees. The children giggled, took the surprise gift, said 'thank you', giggled again and went hobbling straight before turning right and disappearing into an unlit staircase – to upstairs, to a kotha, to what must be their 'home'.

The flag of the Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh



A strange red light district



My GB Road buddies



Outside in the corridor



Inside a showroom, upstairs is a kotha



Your bank next door



Old glory



Another look



Not just another bazaar



Beware of 'pimps'



Last look

Photo Essay – Sky Spotting, Around Town

The Delhi walla's pretension in writing makes me want to lodge a bullet in his balls - Blogger Nimpipi, the woodchuck chucks
GO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIES
Contact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries.



In love with the deceitful season.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

There are a few things which are definitely not Delhi. Like a blue sky. However, each year just when the winter is dying and the summer is about to take over the city, there is a short spell of forgery. The sky turns to a shade of blue that’s a tad first-world-ish.

It was during such a season that I was walking in Sardar Patel Marg when I suddenly looked up at the sky. The earth shook. Delhi disappeared. Bye bye DTC buses, bye bye Jama Masjid, bye bye Connaught Place, bye bye Khan Market.

I was carried away to a metropolis of my dreams. A city where the air is fresh, the trees green, the clouds cottony. Where there are no beggars, no slums, no heat, no dust. Where the sky is forever blue.

However, such deceitful days never last long. Soon we'll have summers. And along with it - the sand storms, the power shortages, and the grey sky. We’ll be back in Delhi.

The fun starts now



That's blue



That's blue, too



Isn't it beautiful?



Are we in Delhi?



Really, are we in Delhi?



Yes, this is Delhi



Just a slice



Hint of the sky



Untainted sky



It's magic



Look, the heaven is close



Kissing the sky



Blue backdrop



Almost there



Spot it



God-like