Mayank Austen Soofi

Last updated

Mayank Austen Soofi
NationalityIndian
Occupation(s)Writer, blogger, and photojournalist
Known forDelhiwale
Childrenno children
Website https://www.thedelhiwalla.com/

Mayank Austen Soofi is a Delhi-based Indian writer, blogger and photojournalist, who writes popular columns for Hindustan Times and Mint on culture, food and literary landscapes of Delhi.

Contents

He is best known for his website and blog, Delhiwale, a multifaceted guide of the city, that has been praised as being "the most compelling guide to India's capital" (The Independent) [1] and "a one-man encyclopedia of the city" (Time Out Delhi). [2]

Biography

Soofi was born in Nainital in the mountains of Uttarakhand and moved to Delhi around 2004. [3] He uses 'Austen' as his middle name as a tribute to the author Jane Austen, about whom he often blogs. [4] [5] His writings were featured in Volume 4 of "Penguin Book of New Writing from India" published by Penguin. [6]

In 2011, he published four alternative guidebooks to the city of Delhi: The Delhi Walla - Portraits, Delhi Food, Delhi Hangouts and Delhi Monuments. [7] His latest book Nobody Can Love You More , published in 2012 by Penguin Books, deals with the life of a 'kotha', Hindi for brothel, in Delhi's largest red-light district, G. B. Road, which is home to 5,000 sex workers. [8] [9] [10]

Also well known for his popular columns on Delhi in the city supplement of Hindustan Times titled "The Delhiwalla", [11] Soofi now writes a column, "Delhi's Belly", for the weekend supplement of the business newspaper Mint. [3] [12]

He has initiated many projects, including Mission Delhi, which aims to profile 1% of Delhi's 14 million people, [13] and a blog dedicated to Arundhati Roy's debut novel, The God of Small Things, and to its readers. He recently started a reading club called The Delhi Proustians, which centers around the French novelist Marcel Proust and his seven volume novel, In Search of Lost Time. [14]

Works

Related Research Articles

Khushwant SinghFKC was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write Train to Pakistan in 1956, which became his most well-known novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shobhaa De</span> Indian journalist and novelist

Shobha De is an Indian novelist and columnist. She is best known for her depiction of socialites and sex in her works of fiction, for which she has been referred to as the "Jackie Collins of India."

Tilak Nagar is a suburban area and commercial hub in the district of West Delhi, Delhi, India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah</span> Dargah (mausoleum) of the Sufi saint Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya

Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah is the dargah (mausoleum) of the Sufi saint Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya. Situated in the Nizamuddin West area of Delhi, the dargah is visited by thousands of pilgrims every week. The site is also known for its evening qawwali devotional music sessions.

Jai Arjun Singh is an Indian freelance writer and journalist based in New Delhi. He has written for Yahoo! India, Business Standard, The Hindu, The Man, Tehelka, Outlook Traveler, The Sunday Guardian and the Hindustan Times, among other publications. His book about the making of the cult comedy film Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro was published by HarperCollins India in 2010. He has also edited The Popcorn Essayists: What Movies Do to Writers, an anthology of original film-related essays for Tranquebar. He writes a popular blog called Jabberwock. He has contributed a story, "Milky Ways", in a book edited by Jaishree Mishra "Of Mothers and Others".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shamsur Rahman Faruqi</span> Indian Urdu language poet, author, critic, and theorist (1935–2020)

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi was an Indian Urdu language poet, author, critic, and theorist. He is known for ushering modernism to Urdu literature. He formulated fresh models of literary appreciation that combined Western principles of literary criticism and subsequently applied them to Urdu literature after adapting them to address literary aesthetics native to Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. Some of his notable works included Sher-e-Shor Angez (1996), Ka’i Chand The Sar-e Asman (2006), The Mirror of Beauty (2013), and The Sun that Rose from the Earth (2014). He was also the editor and publisher of the Urdu literary magazine Shabkhoon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anupama Chopra</span> Indian author, journalist, film critic

Anupama Chopra (née Chandra) is an Indian author, journalist and film critic who serves as the director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. She is also the founder and editor of the digital platform Film Companion, which offers a curated look at cinema. She has written several books on Indian cinema and has been a film critic for NDTV, India Today, as well as the Hindustan Times. She also hosted a weekly film review show The Front Row With Anupama Chopra, on Star World. She won the 2000 National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema for her first book Sholay: The Making of a Classic. She presently critiques movies and interviews celebrities for Film Companion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sadia Dehlvi</span> Indian writer (1957–2020)

Sadia Dehlvi was a Delhi-based activist, writer and a columnist with the daily newspaper, the Hindustan Times, and frequently published in Frontline and Urdu, Hindi and English newspapers and magazines. She was a devotee of Khwaja Gharib Nawaz of Ajmer and Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi. She criticized radical interpretations of Islam and called for a pluralistic understanding of Islam. She produced and scripted documentaries and television programs, including Amma and Family (1995), starring Zohra Sehgal, a veteran stage actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Navtej Sarna</span>

Navtej Singh Sarna is an Indian author, columnist, diplomat and former Indian Ambassador to the United States. He previously served as the High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom, and the Ambassador to Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arvind Krishna Mehrotra</span> Indian writer (born 1947)

Arvind Krishna Mehrotra is an Indian poet, anthologist, literary critic and translator.

G.B. Road,Garstin Bastion Road, is a road running from Ajmeri Gate to Lahori Gate in Delhi, India. It is a large red-light district. It has several hundred multi-storey brothels and there are estimated to be over 1,000 sex workers. It is lined with two or three-storey buildings that have shops on ground floor. About twenty of these buildings have about 100 brothels on the first floor that open at night after the shops at ground level close. It is the biggest red light area in Delhi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barakhamba</span> Tughlaq period tomb in India

Barakhamba, also known as Barakhamba Monument, is a 14th-century tomb building from the Tughlaq period that is located in New Delhi, India. Barakhamba means '12 Pillars' in Urdu and Hindi languages. The name has also been used for an upscale modern metro road named the "Barakhamba road" in Connaught Place at the heart of the city.

Mayank Shekhar is an Indian film critic, journalist and author. He has been a film critic and a national cultural editor with Hindustan Times. He previously worked under Mumbai Mirror and MiD DAY. He also used to write a blog, Fad For Thought, at the Hindustan Times website. Currently, his reviews appear on his website theW14.com and also at the Dainik Bhaskar in different languages. He currently is the editorial head of Mid-Day entertainment.

<i>Nobody Can Love You More</i> Book by Mayank Austen Soofi

Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi's Red Light District is a 2012 book by the Indian writer and photojournalist Mayank Austen Soofi.

S.M. Yunus Jaffery was an Indian scholar of the Persian language. He was from Delhi, India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madan Mahatta</span> Indian photographer

Madan Mahatta (1932–2014) was an Indian photographer. He was mainly interested in architectural photography. He worked closely with architects including Raj Rewal, Charles Correa, Habib Rahman, and Achyut Kanvinde. Many of his works are in black-and-white. Mahatta died of cancer on 5 March 2014.

Fahad Shah is an Indian journalist from Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. He is the founder and editor of the news magazine The Kashmir Walla. He was a recipient of a Human Rights Press Award in 2021.

Minto Bridge, renamed Shivaji Bridge, is a railway underbridge in New Delhi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolstoy Marg</span> Road in Delhi

Tolstoy Marg is a road in the Connaught Place, New Delhi area.

References

  1. ↑ Andrew Buncombe. "The Delhi Walla – the most compelling guide to India's capital". The Independent. Archived from the original on 28 March 2014. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  2. ↑ "Mayank Austen Soofi". The Hindu. 28 January 2013. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  3. 1 2 "Delhi Walla: An Interview with Mayank Austen Soofi". Knowledge Must Blog. 1 September 2011. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  4. ↑ Dow, Gillian; Hanson, Clare (2012). Uses of Austen: Jane's Afterlives. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 25–. ISBN   978-1-137-16481-0.
  5. ↑ Harman, Claire (2007). Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World. Canongate Books. p. 5. ISBN   978-1-84767-578-1.
  6. ↑ First Proof: The Penguin Book of New Writing from India. Penguin Books India. 2010. p. 1. ISBN   978-0-14-341551-0.
  7. ↑ "Oh, That Taste of Delhi!". Thebookreviewindia.org. 1 January 2012. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  8. ↑ Varsha Naik (18 January 2013). "Book review: Nobody Can Love You More- Life in Delhi's Red Light District". DNA, India. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  9. ↑ "The author as a voyeur and many other questions". The Hindu. 18 February 2013. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  10. ↑ "'There's nothing romantic about the life of a sex worker'". Rediff. 7 December 2012. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  11. ↑ "The Delhiwalla". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  12. ↑ "Mayank Austen Soofi". Livemint. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  13. ↑ "Outlook". BBC World Service. 19 December 2011. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  14. ↑ Patrick Barkham (20 March 2012). "Local bloggers: voices from the global village". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.