A Portrait Of A Young Man As The Writer

Photographer. Blogger. Writer. Flâneur. Historian. It’s hard to ascribe a neat label to Mayank Austen Soofi and his work. Niha Masih spends an afternoon with the Delhi Walla

The nameless white marble-top grave on his first visit did not seem very different from the thousands of others that dot the capital. Years later in 2016, when a writer called him looking for a photograph of a “grave or tomb” for an upcoming book, he revisited the grave (among many others). It was the season of “dengue and chikungunya”. Steady raindrops were crashing onto the marble floor. On top was a small, faded rose slowly unfolding and, in a corner, an obscure dead fly.

From among the hundreds he shot, a photograph of this grave would go on to feature on the cover of an international bestseller by Arundhati Roy – The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness. The photographer (also a writer), Mayank Austen Soofiaka The Delhi Walla, a self-proclaimed “hyperlocal”, had suddenly gone global. But Soofi insists he prefers the former.

He has not told anyone, not even Roy, the exact location of the grave. “The book is very special to me. So, this is a thing of mystery that I want to keep for myself,” says the 38-year old. While this may be a city secret he wants to keep, his blog, The Delhi Walla, reveals many more. With 2,748 posts (plus over 19,500 images on Instagram), it features the Delhi you should see, the Delhi that you never see, the Delhi that lies forgotten and sometimes even the Delhi that will come to be.