citizen carrying goat food

i want his life… Josh ji—who is always reading Ulysses, saw him in James Joyce’s Dublin, 2025

everything comes, everything goes…. today moving past a rock solid yesterday—see!

on the kismet of rose

portrait of a timekeeper

Citizen trying to escape from the summer sun’s burning glare, Delhi

Citizens oppressed by summer’s extreme heat, Delhi

going with the goat

in the summer’s extremest heat… citizens in consoling shade, citizens in punishing sun

It is 43 degrees in Delhi… but the hyperlocal tea houses stay busy!

Plan of action for today: buy a new stock of Tegretol 300, get a shave at Bhai Wali’s, search for fresh sightings of Amaltas blossoms (see photo!), forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my city, try the new Daniyal Mueenuddin that Sanjeev was gushing about

food of delhi, still life

Summertime breeze blowing through Delhi’s Sunday Book Bazar, May 2026

“One by one we are all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age…” luv u Michael Furey—lINSHAJOYCE!

A portrait of the poet as a DTC bus driver… my daily City Life dispatch in Hindustan Times today!

silent and far apart… two lives

Short distance relationship can work but it’s not easy

as he walked down the avenue and felt the bluish-orange morning light falling about the tired sad city and smelt the strange pungent smell of the strewn garbage and of the discarded plastic glasses beside the chai stalls, his soul was further entrenched of her miseries

Sleep coming to him like money to millionaires… portrait of a dog at night

two of the 13 ways of looking at the black bird… in stillness & in flight

and she tore the letter into 101 pieces… on the kismet of rose

dear diary i love many writers but when i read joyce i feel freshly empowered as if i can survive one more day and also the day after… INSHAJOYCE!

“And Bloom letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a spider’s web in the corner behind the barrel, and the citizen scowling after him and the old dog at his feet looking up to know who to bite and when”… James Joyce on writerly gaze

portrait of a backstabber, delhi, 2026

The one ruined by reading… at Delhi’s Sunday Book Bazar

in the architecture of light… seeing the shape of sunshine on a sunday

“My soul frets in the shadow of his language”… that’s what i always feel when i , a Hindi-English speaking Indian, talks in English to somebody from England—and today i see that feeling congealed into solid by who else but our very own INSHAJOYCE!

workday hours exposed to extreme heat—when no consolation can be a sufficient consolation… amaltas sighting, delhi

“Yes! Yes! Yes! He would create proudly out of the freedom and power of his soul, a living thing, new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable”… INSHAJOYCE

on a kitchen cook’s perspective of the big wide world

on the taming of the heat… summertime veil

Vermeer’s Man with a Pearl Fingerring

on the bird-shaped hole in the sky

hyperlocal cinema… after the day’s last show ends

chai mates

silently chatting… two lives

hello sir, need your tailor master’s contact

fleeting yellow and everlasting blue… amaltas sighting on a horridly hot afternoon, delhi

by the grave of taak… a disappearing element in hyperlocal architecture

return of the ice age… summertime portrait of Citizen Raja ji

the street getting new underground water pipes… the labourers working in summer afternoon’s horrid heat

as cutting as ice… this summer light

As his novel enterprises fell to pieces, he returned to his wanderings across the city, the deserted summer afternoons leading him from street to street as they had led him years before to nothing

great grandfather’s mail inbox

As part of my mission to create the definitive encyclopedia of every street and nook in the historic Walled City of Old Delhi, here is Rue du Chatta Abdul Hakeem… as my daily City Life dispatch in Hindustan Times today!

possessions, still life

measure for measure… chai for tea

while you were sleeping… good morning, sir

monument at night… moment at night

city lights… amaltas sighting at midnight, delhi