Rabri Faluda I’m in love

In Chawri Bazar this afternoon I came across a food vendor with a queue of locals pestering him for attention. He was selling rabri faluda, a thick, creamy dessert with a basis of vermicelli made with corn starch (faluda seva). You need soaked sabja seeds (sweet basil), rose syrup, ice and cold milk. He added…

Cycling Through the Galis of Old Delhi

It was pitch black when we emerged from Chawri Bazar metro station at 6:15am on a Sunday morning. There are no street lights in the Walled City of Shahjahanabad. But people were awake, huddling around braziers to get some warmth into their bodies before starting the day’s toil. I led my intrepid colleagues down the…

Thursday Doors

Have a haircut on the street, in front of Samar & Sons, purveyors of toilet cisterns and bathroom fittings. I really like the way the barber has hung all his kit from the electricity cables around the door. The pink colour is sickly, but how about the column on the right? A Corinthian capital, perhaps?…

(Rough) Diamond Dogs in Delhi

Wandering down the lanes (galis) of Old Delhi on Sunday morning, I took some photos of dogs. Here’s an old man, sitting in the feeble winter sunshine with his dog. This family were catching up on some sleep, huddled together on a ledge. This man was lovingly stroking his dog’s head with his left foot.…

Chawri Bazar

During the last days of the Mughals, in the early 19th century, Chawri Bazar was the Soho of Old Delhi. It was an area famous for courtesans and nautch girls – girls who danced so alluringly that their suggestive moves could reduce men to gibbering wrecks. Although the lanes were narrow, behind an unprepossessing facade…