The Delhi Walla saw this man at an alley in Bulbuli Khana, a congested neighborhood in the Walled City, the historic district established by the Mughals. Read more

Taking off his yellow T-shirt and flexing his muscles, he says, “I’m eating too much biryani. I need to tone up my body.” Read more

Nankhatai is like the Indian English – foreign influence slapped, beaten, fermented and baked by Indians till it gets desified. Read more

It is 7 am. The room is lined with old paperbacks. Tiger, the house dog, is looking out of the grill into the garden. Rosemary, the maid, is calling me for breakfast. But I’m listening to the sound of birds. Read more

As a Delhi reporter sent to Gujarat to feel the pulse of its people, I’m still trying to make sense of the Congress landslide in that state. Technically speaking, the Narendra Modi-led BJP with 15 seats is right there at the top. But how did the Congress win even 10?  

A single-digit score would have been perfectly respectable considering that most people whom I talked to spoke of Modi as if he was a wrathful but just God who crushes the evil, feeds the poor and doesn’t let any power bring dishonour to Gujarat’s asmita. Read more

Have you read the definitive Delhi novel?

Of course, not. I’m still writing it but you know last night I dreamt that The New York Times carried a review of my novel! Here it is… Read more

On the 25th of February, 2009, as I sit musing amid the ruins of Delhi’s Feroze Shah Kotla, while the bare-footed Sufis are chanting ayaats to shoo off the djinns, the idea of writing the decline and fall of this city is stirring in my mind.

It’s tempting. Read more