Writer · @irachaudhary

Ira Chaudhary

I write about the city mostly — the small indignities, the surprising kindnesses, the general chaos of being alive in Delhi without a car.

pieces

9,697

words

a letter I didn't send

I wrote it in October, somewhere between the first draft and sending, decided not to. You were going through the thing you were go…

#letter#friendship#essay

— AnonymousAug 25, 2026

a birthday in a city far from the people who know you

Mine was in January, which was convenient because Delhi in January has a cold that justifies staying home. My actual birthday pref…

#birthday#family#essay

— Ira ChaudharyAug 21, 2026

coffee at 3am and what it means

This is a bad habit I have apparently kept since I was twenty-two: some nights, for no clear reason, I make coffee at three in the…

#night#essay#personal

— Ira ChaudharyAug 19, 2026

rain in June, a corrective

Everyone romanticizes the first rain. There are poems about it. Songs. People stand on balconies and photograph the clouds. The sm…

#delhi#monsoon#essay

— Ira ChaudharyAug 18, 2026

things that disappear without announcement

The chai stall outside the office building was there on a Wednesday and gone by Thursday. No notice. The spot is just a bit of pav…

#city#change#essay

— Ira ChaudharyAug 16, 2026

on the 7:45 from Dwarka

My friend Prerna lives in Dwarka Sector 10, which requires planning. You don't accidentally end up in Dwarka. You commit to Dwarka…

#delhi#metro#friendship

— Ira ChaudharyAug 15, 2026

tuesday, nothing special

Nothing happened today. The meeting was fine. The lunch was the same daal from yesterday, which was still good. Priya sent a meme.…

#personal#essay

— Ira ChaudharyAug 13, 2026

the man upstairs

He is a large man who walks heavily. I know his schedule better than I know most of my friends' schedules: up at six (I am now als…

#neighbors#delhi#observation

— Ira ChaudharyAug 11, 2026

on missing people who haven't left

There's a kind of missing that has nothing to do with absence. My best friend lives in the same city. I see her every other Saturd…

#friendship#memory#essay

— Ira ChaudharyAug 10, 2026

moving again

The boxes are from the last move. I have moved often enough that I've kept them. The packing is the part I'm good at now, which is…

#moving#essay#personal

— Ira ChaudharyAug 9, 2026

the cook who gave notice

Ramesh gave notice on a Tuesday with seventeen days left on the month, which he apologized for at length. The notice period, he ex…

#essay#delhi#personal

— Ira ChaudharyAug 5, 2026

on the day Chandni Chowk felt like mine

I've lived in this city for six years. Chandni Chowk, which is technically everyone's, has never felt like mine. Too crowded, too…

#delhi#chandni chowk#city

— AnonymousAug 3, 2026

the man who fixed my screen

He runs a phone repair stall outside the Nehru Place metro exit. The stall is a folding table under an umbrella with a sign in mar…

#delhi#essay#city

— AnonymousAug 1, 2026

the interview

I had an interview at 11am in Gurgaon, which meant leaving at 9 to account for the metro and the walk and the fact that something…

#work#essay#delhi

— Ira ChaudharyJul 28, 2026

the bookshop that still exists

Khan Market has a bookshop. Two, actually, but one of them has been there since before I was born, and it has the specific quality…

#books#delhi#essay

— Ira ChaudharyJul 27, 2026

how to be alone in a city that doesn't believe in privacy

My building has twelve flats on four floors. Of these, the occupants of seven are known to me well enough to exchange more than a…

#loneliness#delhi#essay

— Ira ChaudharyJul 24, 2026

my father's silences, a partial catalogue

The silence at the dinner table when something was wrong but no one had named it yet. This silence lasted sometimes through the fu…

#father#family#essay

— Ira ChaudharyJul 20, 2026

something to do with mangoes

My relationship with mangoes is complicated by memory in the way that everything good is eventually complicated by memory. Summer…

#food#summer#family

— Ira ChaudharyJul 20, 2026

holi, next door

The family in C-4 starts at eight in the morning. Music I can identify from four walls away: the old songs, the kind that play at…

#delhi#holi#neighbors

— AnonymousJul 19, 2026

the monsoon city

The city has a smell in August that I cannot describe to anyone who hasn't been in it. Petrichor is the word people use but that's…

#delhi#monsoon#essay

— Ira ChaudharyJul 18, 2026

things my grandmother said about suffering

She didn't say much about it directly. What she said was mostly about other things that were, I've come to understand, about suffe…

#grandmother#family#essay

— Ira ChaudharyJul 17, 2026

on losing things slowly

Not all at once. That would be easier, maybe — one clear moment, one clear loss. But the slow kind: the friendship that gets quiet…

#essay#loss#personal

— AnonymousJul 16, 2026

the office birthday cake problem

Someone organizes it. There is always one person who organizes it, whose identity rotates and who is never officially appointed. T…

#office#humor#essay

— AnonymousJul 14, 2026

a very small grief

The plant died while I was in Jaipur for four days. I had left it on the balcony thinking the rain would water it. The rain did no…

#personal#grief

— AnonymousJul 13, 2026

enough

I keep a list, which I don't tell people about because it sounds like a wellness thing and it isn't, exactly. It's just: things th…

#essay#personal#reflection

— Ira ChaudharyJul 11, 2026

things I learned from parallel parking in Sarojini Nagar

1. There is no such thing as a gap that is "technically big enough." 2. The man who volunteers to direct you is not your friend. H…

#delhi#driving#humor

— Ira ChaudharyJul 4, 2026

the colleague who cried in the office bathroom

I heard her before I saw her. I was washing my hands and there it was, from the last stall: the very specific sound of someone try…

#office#essay#women

— AnonymousJul 3, 2026

the last day of any lease

By the end of the last day the flat looks like a concept rather than a place. The marks on the wall where you hung the picture, th…

#delhi#moving#essay

— Ira ChaudharyJul 3, 2026

three roommates

Rhea moved in first. She was recommended by a friend of a friend and her main quality, according to that recommendation, was that…

#essay#roommates#delhi

— Ira ChaudharyJul 3, 2026

my mother calls at 7pm

Every day. 7pm is when she finishes cooking and sits down, or sometimes while she's still standing at the stove, and she calls me…

#family#mother#essay

— Ira ChaudharyJul 1, 2026

the rickshaw fare

Forty rupees he wanted from the INA market to my flat, which is a twelve-minute walk I have done a hundred times but today I was c…

#delhi#autorickshaw#city

— Ira ChaudharyJun 30, 2026

October

The light changes before anything else does. You notice it on a Tuesday, in the middle of the afternoon, and it's different someho…

#delhi#october#seasons

— Ira ChaudharyJun 29, 2026

things I shouldn't have bought at Lajpat Nagar

A kurta in a color described by the seller as "dusty rose" that is, in any natural light, a clear and unambiguous orange. Four set…

#shopping#humor#delhi

— AnonymousJun 29, 2026

small violences of a shared kitchen

The milk left at the edge of almost-empty so whoever finishes it has to go buy more. The pan left soaking in the sink at the exact…

#essay#roommates#humor

— AnonymousJun 28, 2026

december, briefly

Everyone becomes a better version of themselves in December. More patient at traffic lights. More generous about the fog, which ma…

#delhi#december#seasons

— AnonymousJun 28, 2026

on always being the person who remembers birthdays

This is a thing about me that people find charming until they realize it's a compulsion and not a virtue. I remember Neha's birthd…

#memory#essay#personal

— Ira ChaudharyJun 28, 2026

the 8:12 from Rajiv Chowk

There is a woman who boards at Rajiv Chowk every weekday at 8:12am and eats a paratha from a steel tiffin she carries in a cloth b…

#delhi#metro#city

— Ira ChaudharyJun 27, 2026

the neighbor practices harmonium at 11pm

Not badly. That's the thing. If he were bad at it I'd have a complaint. He plays somewhere between 11 and midnight, muffled throug…

#delhi#neighbors#music

— AnonymousJun 24, 2026

notes from a power cut in July

7:43pm: Power goes. The ceiling fan winds down with a dignity I find touching. The city noise, which I usually tune out, becomes t…

#delhi#summer#essay

— Ira ChaudharyJun 23, 2026

the street dog I named Govinda

You're not supposed to name them. Naming them is the first mistake. It's the difference between a street dog and your dog, and one…

#delhi#dogs#essay

— Ira ChaudharyJun 23, 2026

the autorickshaw driver who quoted Kabir at me

I was complaining about traffic. I was doing it quietly, mostly to myself, but he heard. He looked at me in the rearview mirror —…

#delhi#autorickshaw#poetry

— Ira ChaudharyJun 22, 2026

the crossing at Connaught Place

At five-thirty, the inner circle. Everyone moving, nobody quite looking at anyone else, but everyone aware of everyone else. The a…

#delhi#city#observation

— AnonymousJun 21, 2026

my landlord has strong opinions about my curtains

He came to fix the geyser — which, to his credit, he actually fixed, unlike the geyser incident of last March that resulted in thr…

#delhi#landlord#apartment

— Ira ChaudharyJun 20, 2026

my father visits for three days

He comes with a bag that is always too large for three days. He brings things my mother has packed: a steel dabba of mathri (for m…

#family#father#delhi

— Ira ChaudharyJun 19, 2026

cutting chai and other constants

Suresh bhaiya sets up his cart at 7:45am exactly, at the corner where the service lane meets the main road outside our office buil…

#delhi#chai#city

— Ira ChaudharyJun 18, 2026

how I accidentally became a regular somewhere

The dhaba is on the stretch between my metro station and my flat, which means I pass it twice a day. I stopped once because it was…

#delhi#food#essay

— AnonymousJun 16, 2026

on the efficiency of grief

The thing about grief is it doesn't wait for a convenient time. It comes at Rajiv Chowk at 8:45am when you see someone reading the…

#grief#essay#personal

— AnonymousJun 15, 2026

the café on Hauz Khas

It's gone now. Has been gone for maybe two years. In its place there is a salon with a very clean window and a name in English and…

#delhi#cafes#friendship

— Ira ChaudharyJun 15, 2026

on being asked for the third time this year

Masi asked at the January wedding. She is seventy-two and deployed the question with surgical precision between the baraat arrivin…

#essay#family#personal

— Ira ChaudharyJun 13, 2026