Writing Delhi

Online city guides are a good barometer of how New Delhi is changing

August 01, 2014 08:42 pm | Updated 08:44 pm IST - New Delhi

Suchita Salwan, the founder of Little Black Book Delhi Photo Meeta Ahlawat

Suchita Salwan, the founder of Little Black Book Delhi Photo Meeta Ahlawat

Cities are changing constantly, and so are the ways of keeping track of it. With new experiences becoming available and older ones getting supplanted almost every day in every imaginable aspect of our lives, it is easy to feel lost in the city one calls home. Thankfully, over the last few years, a host of websites have come up seeking to act as our guides, distilling these experiences into easily consumable nuggets of information. Little Black Book Delhi is among the most popular of these.

“A niche website that caters to an up-scale, educated and informed audience, looking to explore new and different sides of Delhi and around,” Little Black Book Delhi was started in January 2012 by Suchita Salwan, who was then working with BBC as a marketing professional.

“Like any other person, I was really fed up with Delhi. There was nothing to do, everything was static. I started this blog to challenge my notion of Delhi,” she remembers. It helped that it took off around the same time as the ‘Hauz Khas Village boom’, for the website quickly became a gateway to discovering Delhi.

While today one is likely to encounter curated guides to Delhi, in the form of listicles such as “10 Late Night Delivery Joints for your Speed Dial” or “20 Cafes that Offer Free Wi-Fi”, the website had grander designs when it began. “When we started out there was a lot of longform...When I would interview people, I would really dig for substance — why they are doing what they are doing, what their challenges are,” she recalls. They were really descriptive and detailed; personally it was gratifying, but for a reader it was too much.”

In terms of the content evolution, she says the website has become more relevant. For example, she says, “Earlier we focused a lot on art. While that still exists, it’s put out if it’s really specific to the time period. So we’ll write about art only around India Art Fair because it fits the general vibe of the city then.” The tone of the website is “super positive”. “The people and places we feature are ones we take pride in; we don’t want to berate anyone.” Distinguishing it from journalism, Suchita says the content on the website is driven by subjective opinion and not objective truth.

A popular component of the website is its hood guides series, where the editors have scoured neighbourhoods such as Hauz Khas village, Mehrchand Market, Shahpur Jat and Cyber City, Gurgaon, to come up with an online lifestyle directory. While there seems to be an overwhelming South and Central Delhi focus to the website, Suchita says it’s because this is the “hub of all popular culture activity”.

“I stay on Pusa Road, where everyone I know comes to Khan Market, GK 2 or Vasant Kunj to shop and to eat. There is nothing elitist in covering things which everyone does,” she says. Moreover, she points out, the website has also led walks to Okhla Bird Sanctuary and Northern Ridge.

Little Black Book Delhi’s offline presence has contributed to most of its revenues, as it collaborates with brands to monetise the participation of readers. Delhi Grub Club and Delhi Cocktail Club are two such events.

“What I love about what we guys are doing is there’s no trick, there s no formula. You have to be on the pulse of the city, of what people are talking about, what people are thinking about,” she says.

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