The city of Delhi has an unparalleled heritage and history. Unfortunately, over the years, many seem to have forgotten that the city is also a treasure trove of unexplored narratives of the common man. “Delhi has so many stories that usually do not see the light of day if written in an academic format,” shares Patparganjbased anthropologist Samprati Pani.
Adding to this thought, philosopher and social anthropologist Sarover Zaidi, a Sukhdev Vihar resident, points out, “Writing on Delhi had become mostly from the historical and heritage perspective. I found it to be less revelatory and more alienating.” Irked by reading pieces on the curated aspects of this city that both Pani and Zaidi have grown up in, the duo decided to launch a blog that allows them to express their relationship with Delhi through experiences.
Founded in 2017, Chiragh Dilli is a way of going beyond the mainstream dialectic of a place and a name that is often left in the shadows. Chiragh Dilli—it translates as the ‘Lamp of Delhi’ in English— therefore sheds light on similar spaces that may seem unimportant but are not.
Musings and more
The blog features articles on fiction, essays, poetry about Delhi that goes beyond a personal narrative, and showcases the city from an academic lens. “The idea was to move to writing about things that one had always experienced in the city that were personal and yet could traverse the academic aspect of writing,” explains Zaidi.
In that sense, while the focus is on personal experiences of spaces, the blog has a certain academic rigour to it. Both Pani and Zaidi, who are in their 40s, focus differently on this blog. While Pani’s works are rooted in the act and politics of walking in the city, Zaidi—she teaches at the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, and Jindal School of Art and Architecture, Sonipat—looks at the architecture of Delhi from an anthropological point of view.
The pulse of the city
In many ways, Chiragh Dilli can be defined as a blog that looks at the mundane happenings in everyday city life. Speaking of how they categorise the blog as a space for the ‘being and becoming of Delhi’, Pani says, “The city shapes our lives as much as we shape it through our lives.” Their blog posts focus on writing about a space from an experiential nature.
“It is the relationship with the world that we inhabit and how we discover it for ourselves and for others around us,” says Zaidi. Pani adds, “We are certain, there is no one experience of Delhi, and we try to bring that out through our writings.”
Tales of the common man
The articles in Chiragh Dilli by Pani and Zaidi include snippets about a walk in Patparganj or even the Shaheen Bagh protests in 2020. As Pani mentions, “Our relationship with the city is not just a relationship of love. There are other emotions present, be it memory or anger, not just from our identity as a quintessential Delhiwala. It is not that we don’t look at the history of Delhi.
But for us, these are deeply rooted in the ordinary lives of city people.” Chiragh Dilli’s motive is, thus, to go beyond the historical aspects of the city and make visible the common man who inhabits Delhi. With that in mind, the duo also publishes collaborative pieces with other writers who speak about their experience of and in Delhi. Even though it started out as a blog on Delhi, currently Pani and Zaidi have expanded Chiragh Dilli to include other cities such as Bhubaneswar, Surat, Kochi, to name a few.
