The Goan: You have The Delhi Walla blog, you shoot and publish so many pictures every day, how do you manage your time?
Mayank Austen Soofi: Well, I don’t think in terms of managing or mismanaging my time. Reading is a passion, everything comes out of reading, whether it’s writing or taking photographs. I’m not a trained photographer by the way, so I don’t see myself as one. I see myself as somebody who is trying to read a book that is yet to be written perhaps. The normal course from a life of reading is a life of writing. Even if I take these photographs I’m actually writing. The Delhi Walla blog is about life in a city and I’ve been working on for nine years, in fact it will complete ten years early next year.
TG: How many toes have you stepped on through The Delhi Walla blog? You do blog about life and things in Delhi with a certain amount of sarcasm and wit, that may not always be accepted by everyone
MAS: I don’t make fun of people. Maybe I do make fun of situations but that’s the way I am. One of the many things on my website is called Netherfield Ball, which is about parties in Delhi or wherever I happen to be. I’m very fond of Jane Austen and Marcel Proust. These authors, the way they wrote about parties was superb. Just through the parties, and what people were talking about, the gossip…you could know so much about the times that you are living on. Yes, I know I’m slightly funny and cynical sometimes in my party pieces, but I feel that I don’t make fun of particular people. Sometimes situations are so ironic, so we just need to celebrate them. Recently at one of the parties, a famous writer who was the butt of my jokes was very offended, and said that it was a bulls**t piece, but I explained things to him and he was fine. I don’t want to be presumptuous that everyone knows my work, but people who I make fun of, everytime I meet them they say that they love my pieces, that I’m very naughty, and this is how it is…
TG: Do you think they’re just being polite to your face?
MAS: Why would they be polite? In Delhi people are not polite and if you really outrage someone then no one will go out of their way to be polite to you. It’s not like when I go to these place I reach out to these people. I don’t reach out. They just see me, spot me and they’re nice. I value them, I mean, they’re some of the people whose work I like. This is not making fun of them, this is how things work, you know, it’s fun. No one takes it seriously. I write about many other things which are not funny. One of the things I’m doing on my site is called Mission Delhi. It’s about trying to profile one percent of Delhi’s population, which is not possible in my lifetime. I’m trying. So, every day I walk. Walking is the best way to see the world and I come across various sections of people. Each person is so different, like fingerprints. My Delhi is different from the next person’s Delhi. To try to understand those different cities, I think it’s very important to fleetingly understand the life of the person. That’s what I want to do with Mission Delhi. I come across a person, I photograph them, I talk to them about their life at their particular moment.
TG: So these photographs on fabric stem from there?
MAS: Mission Delhi actually came out in a separate book by Harper Collins. It’s called The Delhi Walla Portraits. These pictures (referring to the images on fabric on display at GALF) …I was always arrogant and snobbish, ‘I’m a writer, I’ll never get on to facebook or Instagram…’, but I joined it and it was amazing. It has now become a parallel thing to my blog. There every day I take pictures, I upload them on facebook with a caption. People really like them. There are many people who follow my posts but don’t follow my website. This is how things are, people get their news through facebook, but I’m not complaining. These are basically facebook posts that you can now touch. This was done by a designer in Venice. I was actually invited to Venice to blog about the Venice Ghetto, the way I blog about Delhi. I met this designer, Anna Gerrotto, and she transposed these pics on to fabric. For first time it was exhibited in Venice at the Pallazo.
TG: Why photographs on fabric? Why do you want people to touch your photographs?
MAS: This is just 50 percent me and 50 percent the designer. Every day I upload about 20-25 pics on facebook and instagram, but she thought that if she just put them to paper there are so many images. She wanted to get a sense of a rush of images. Now we are in the process of coming up with the next edition of prints.
