delhi 6

Delhi is almost like a dead city during its summer months. In summer I often wondered what still keeps this city going. When I stepped down from the car onto the streets of Chandni Chowk, I instantly knew what.

Chandni Chowk can be called a sub-city of sorts within Delhi. The vibrant colors and dizzyingly delicious fragrances fill up your senses. Not to miss the Hindi love songs jingled beside heartbreaking ghazals, the new lingo you learn while you overhear a ‘maal’ conversation….well, it’s all for free!

Passing through the crowded streets filled with rickshaws, cars, scooters, bikes, dogs and people , it looked like every space seemed to have been put to use, shops selling DVD players and video cameras next to old men at stalls repairing watches or polishing shoes, street food being cooked and served, and the occasional medical and dental shops. You don’t "walk" down these streets but instead you work through the crowds of thousands of other people, it is overwhelming to say the least. So I stood and contemplated the sheer number of people around me in this overheated, dusty, dirty, broken down relic of an imperial city, and let my still reeling mind turn on the fact that this was the poverty in which most of the city lived.

I had decided that that I would venture off into the quaint odd alleys on my own so I waited impatiently for the rest of the group to gather at Karim’s for lunch. Lunch was elaborate with mutton burras, roomali rotis, biriyani, chicken and firni in generous amounts. I think the men made utmost use of this opportunity, the women kept nibbling little of everything. The walk back from Karim’s through Dariba Kalan and Parathe wali galli was interspersed with more food. I guess its okay to keep eating as long as you don’t outweigh your refrigerator!!

Dr. Nigam seemed different today. He took us through the alleys of Chandni Chowk like how a father would take his kids to the zoo for the first time, stopping at just the right places for the rabri, lassi and then at nataraj’s for bhalle and so on so forth. He insisted that we stuff ourselves up with all the awesome street food. Also the number of places that he knew around the place couldn’t be covered in a single day. We missed out on Ghalib ki Haveli, Chitli Kabar and a closer look inside Jama Masjid.

Next came Khari Baoli. This walk would be a chef’s delight or a food lover’s dream walk, as it takes you through the biggest spice market in Asia. I stopped to talk to a local shopkeeper and asked him what Khari Baoli meant and he told me the name of the street indicates that there must have been a step well here and its water would have been salted. Some others said that there was a step well and it was used for washing the cattle, but today I found no trace of any step well there. As i walked down the street, I saw spices displayed outside the numerous small and big shops. Interestingly the shops are known by their number rather than their names or the owner’s name. Though the traders prefer to deal with the wholesale buyers, but they do entertain the retail buyers too. The pickles and the chutneys were mouth watering.

As we walked down the busy road and smiled at some friendly passersby, I realized that this wild, magical and subtly shocking place did for me what Gregory David Robert’s Bombay did for him. I came across a lot of ‘lin Babas’ and a lot of ‘Prabhakers’ and I mused if Chandni Chowk failed to fill up my senses, nothing ever would.

Strangely, I was far from exhausted and came back to the office to sit with the tech team for more work on the website.

For a few more glimpses go here.