 "'Tell them my fingerprints are all over these walls, those leaves, that sky...'")
Photos and text by Radhika Oberoi | Typography by Devshree Sahai
***
“Tell them my fingerprints are all over these walls, those leaves, that sky…”
Muhammad Yousuf, 65 | Muezzin | Sunehri Masjid, Old Delhi
[imgcenter]
***
“You’ll know me by the tender meat in your nihari.” Muhammad Shamim, 70 | Owner, Shamim Meat Shop | Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk, Delhi [imgcenter]
“My machines can’t tell if you see friends or foes.”
Khalid Jamil, 65 | Chand Optical Co. | Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk, Delhi
***
“Paperless, but you can have my roses, my talismans, my prayers.” Outside the Dargah Hazrat Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki | Mehrauli Village, New Delhi [imgcenter]
“My name? Every incense stick you light will whisper it.”
***
“These pillars don’t care if I wear a hijab or not.” Friends, at the Masjid-ii-Jahānnumā (Jama Masjid) | Old Delhi [imgcenter]
“Will my photo appear in The Times of Undocumented People?”
Anonymous, at the Dargah Hazrat Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki | Mehrauli Village, New Delhi
***
“Uninvited to worldly banquets, always welcome here.”
Anonymous, at the Dargah Hazrat Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki | Mehrauli Village, New Delhi
[imgcenter]
***
“My ghetto is a castle of silk and gold.” Muhammad Ashraf Mir, 63 | Shop No. 736 | Shankar Market, New Delhi [imgcenter]
***
“Would you ask a djinn for his documents?”
Outside the Red Fort, Old Delhi
[imgcenter]
***
Radhika Oberoi is the author of Stillborn Season, a novel set amidst the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. She has worked in advertising for 17 years or so, and also moonlights as a journalist. Devshree Sahai is a designer, an artist, an explorer. She works for GCD Studio, and has over eight years of experience in advertising and design.
 "Charlie Kirk, shot dead in Utah, once said gun deaths are 'worth it' to save Second Amendment")
 "From governance to tourism, how Gen-Z protests have damaged Nepal")
 "Did Russia deliberately send drones into Poland’s airspace?")
 "Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages: Qatar PM after Doha strike")
 "Charlie Kirk, shot dead in Utah, once said gun deaths are 'worth it' to save Second Amendment")
 "From governance to tourism, how Gen-Z protests have damaged Nepal")
 "Did Russia deliberately send drones into Poland’s airspace?")
 "Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages: Qatar PM after Doha strike")
