 "'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 [imgcenter]
“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 [imgcenter]
“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 [imgcenter]
“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 [imgcenter]
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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.