Snaps

A conversation with the Delhi-based ensemble Chaar Yaar / Faqiri Quartet about the ensemble, language, translation, Sufi poetry, listening to histories, and songs of love, joy, and collectivity in times of divisiveness.

Sunayana Wadhawan traces a map of stories from Kathputli Colony (Puppeteer’s Colony) in New Delhi to foreground the pressing concerns of artists and art forms that are displaced and delegitimized in the name of urban development.

In this essay, the author unpacks memories of the city in the song of Qawwals, observing how in memorializing the past, Delhi emerges in Qawwali not as a location, an identity, or a descriptive category, but always as a space of desire.

Walking around the city of Delhi, India with archivist and record-collector Nishant Mittal (Digging in India) and making a pitstop at Ghalib’s tomb as he shares anecdotes from his record collections.

Shomi reflects on the music scene taking shape at a certain moment in Delhi, the voices, people, sounds, influences, concerns, and genres creating it, and the moment that it has arrived at now.

An audio documentary by writer, researcher, and listener R. Talitha Samuel, as they report from sites of protest and worship in the capital city of India to make audible the voices and desires of Dalit Christians in the country.

This piece was composed using sounds collected by the author over time: field recordings, domestic appliances, machines, audio journals, decibel levels, notes, and tones that Gaurav weaves into the soundtrack of the city of Delhi, India, which he calls home.

How does the practice of women walking at midnight shape alternative ways of listening, intimately and associatively? Mallika Taneja shares a durational recording of a recent walk, inviting listeners to sense a night in New Delhi, India, as they journey alongside.