
City: Delhi / NCR







From Shah Jahan’s court to the present: Tales of a dying trade from Delhi’s last deed writer
Satya Narain Saxena, the tenth generation of a family of legal deed writers, is today the last surviving document writer of Delhi. His family history goes back to the times of emperor Shah Jahan while some of his ancestors were in Maharaja Jai Singh’s court in Amer. 85-plus Saxena regales us with his stories

Monkey business: The oft-ignored menace in our cities
Did you know that the Prime Minister’s vision of a free-wifi Varanasi faces major disruption because of monkeys that chew up the cables regularly? Or that even the elite in Lutyens’ Delhi have to battle the menace every day? Here’s a look at a pressing urban problem that hardly gets the attention it calls for.







Is Delhi ready for a green Diwali, with only anars and phuljaris?
The Supreme Court has mandated that only ‘green’ crackers as formulated by CSIR-NEERI and approved by PESO may be burst this Diwali, so that there is less air and noise pollution. But is Delhi, a city used to boisterous celebrations for a week before and after the festival, ready for a quieter, smoke-free Diwali?