Sonal

Gunpowder

Fully loaded ♦ Purely via word-of-mouth, this unassuming little room with a view has become the new hotspot in Hauz Khas Village. Ears are buzzing, tongues are tingling and Dilliwalas in the know are all asking the same question: “Have you been to Gunpowder yet?” Of course, it helps that one of the owners, Satish …

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Consuming passion

Anjum Anand ♦ Anjum Anand served a station full of beefy British fire-fighters naan and lamb curry – cooked by one of their fellows – in the last season of her debut cooking show Indian Food Made Easy. However, the meal was not as heavy as the usual lunch the fire-fighters consume. “Light” Indian food …

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Shahjahanabad coolers

Street the heat ♦ Feeling a bit parched in puraani Dilli? Quench your thirst at these local institutions. Read the Time Out Delhi (July 2009) story as a PDF, find the text reproduced below, or download it here. (Pairs well with this story on old Delhi street food.) Amritsari Lassi Wala The thickest lassi we’ve found in old …

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Amritsari Meatwala

Khau gali ♦ The market under the Defence Colony flyover is possibly one of the least savoury destinations inside the Ring Road. Just behind red and shiny Nirula’s, behind the thekas, men in banians guzzle beer and chomp on kababs at an Afghan chicken stop. We’re more interested in the other side of the bridge, …

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Flights of fantasy

An interview with Alia Syed ♦ Experimental filmmaker Alia Syed was born in Swansea, Wales, to Indian and Welsh parents. Over the last thirteen years, Syed’s films have discussed diaspora, subjectivity and narrative, creating mesmerizing visual experiences. From the 24th of December to the 31st of March, Delhi’s Talwar Gallery held Syed’s first solo show …

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Mirdard Lane

Khau gali ♦ New Delhi gives way to the old city as you cross the railway line northeast of Connaught Place. A little before Shahjahanabad proper, however, the area between Ferozeshah Kotla, Gandhi Market and ITO already feels more like Sheher than Nai Dilli. This is where the balance of traffic switches from cars to …

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Charred minars

Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie surveys the world from Guantanamo to Peshawar in an interview ♦ Extending from the callousness of the Nagasaki bombing to the compassion of a spider whose web hid the Prophet Mohammed, Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie’s fifth novel, Burnt Shadows, won praise from critics for its scope and detailing. Shamsie’s characters survive (or …

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Like a surgeon

In Abraham Verghese’s debut novel, fate is stitched together with sutures ♦ Abraham Verghese is a man of science and fact. His experiences as a doctor in small-town Tennessee in the mid-1980s during the early years of the AIDS epidemic led to his first book, the well-received My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story.  After a flurry …

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Eternal outsider

Abraham Verghese talks about Cutting for Stone and the idea of home ♦ This interview was conducted for a feature in Time Out Delhi. Could you tell me a bit about how your family came to be in Ethiopia and the background of Malayalis in that country? I am told that Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia …

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Unbreathable

Why taking the air is a bad idea ♦ A cover story on air pollution in Delhi, from Time Out Delhi, March 2009. Read an excerpt of the story below or download it as a prettier PDF here.