There is no reason why The Delhi Walla shouldn’t feel lucky to be in the fifth Jaipur Literature Festival. I chatted with the former New Yorker editor Tina Brown. Nobel laureate Wole Soynka looked into my eyes for full five seconds. William Dalrymple, the author of City of Djinns, hugged me. Read more

The first day of the fifth Jaipur Literary Festival rocked. Held in Hotel Diggi Palace, there was a Nobel laureate from Africa, two Pulitzer-prize winning authors from the US, a bestselling novelist from Scotland, a young writer from Pakistan, a lyricist from Bombay, a poet from Allahabad. Read more

The water in the bucket is as freezing as the 4.30 am air. But the stairs in this four-floor apartment complex have to be washed daily at this hour. “It’s a job and it has to be done,” says Changa Kumar, 20.

In a contrast to his jet black skin, his yellow teeth give a whitish glare every time he talks. A resident of Delhi for two years, Mr Kumar is an errand boy in an apartment complex in Hauz Khas Village, Delhi’s artsy neighbourhood consisting of ruins, art galleries, restaurants and flats. Read more

Ms. Vidya Rao, thumri singer and part-time editor at Orient Longman, lives with Sufi in a sunny second-floor apartment, not far from Qutab Minar, in Mehrauli.

Like most live-in companions, they have only a few things in common. While both share an aversion for milk, Ms. Rao loves chocolates and Sufi doesn’t. Read more

It was Muharram. Weighed down in black maatam clothes, I was beating my seena (chest), along with others, in the middle of the road. Our mothers and sisters, robed in black, lined the streets. They too were doing seene-zani. Read more

In a neighbourhood where most houses are small and over-crowded, Satnam Singh Juneja is the master of an eight-room address. All his walls are painted blue. But the home is unkempt. The bed sheet is crumpled. The dining table is dusty. Read more