'Tell them my fingerprints are all over these walls, those leaves, that sky...'

Photos and text by Radhika Oberoi | Typography by Devshree Sahai

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“Tell them my fingerprints are all over these walls, those leaves, that sky…”

Muhammad Yousuf, 65 | Muezzin | Sunehri Masjid, Old Delhi

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“You’ll know me by the tender meat in your nihari.”

Muhammad Shamim, 70 | Owner, Shamim Meat Shop | Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk, Delhi

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“My machines can’t tell if you see friends or foes.”

Khalid Jamil, 65 | Chand Optical Co. | Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk, Delhi

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“Paperless, but you can have my roses, my talismans, my prayers.”

Outside the Dargah Hazrat Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki | Mehrauli Village, New Delhi

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“My name? Every incense stick you light will whisper it.”

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“These pillars don’t care if I wear a hijab or not.”

Friends, at the Masjid-ii-Jahānnumā (Jama Masjid) | Old Delhi

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“Will my photo appear in The Times of Undocumented People?”

Anonymous, at the Dargah Hazrat Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki | Mehrauli Village, New Delhi

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“Uninvited to worldly banquets, always welcome here.”

Anonymous, at the Dargah Hazrat Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki | Mehrauli Village, New Delhi

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“My ghetto is a castle of silk and gold.”

Muhammad Ashraf Mir, 63 | Shop No. 736 | Shankar Market, New Delhi

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“Would you ask a djinn for his documents?”

Outside the Red Fort, Old Delhi

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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.