Delhiwale: A cold-weather friend

After plunging into semi-hibernation during the summer and monsoon months, Gurugram’s Masjid Udayan has awakened to the October nip. It’s not yet cold, and the winter’s dreaded haze is weeks away.

A man is lying on a bench, wide awake. Some steps away, a chhole-bhature eatery staffer is hurriedly finishing his homemade dal-roti. While a cotton candy hawker, armed with plastic-wrapped pink candies, is playing ludo on the mobile. Then there’s a goat, and a lazy dog too. Overlooking it all is the area’s Jama Masjid.

Be warned, though: the park is just a muddy brown ground with some grass and some cactuses.

After plunging into semi-hibernation during the summer and monsoon months, Gurugram’s Masjid Udayan has awakened to the October nip. It’s not yet cold, and the winter’s dreaded haze is weeks away. Be warned, though: the park is just a muddy brown ground with some grass and some cactuses. If you are patient, only then does it reveal its elusive beauty. Most citizens ignore this place, tucked at one end of the town’s Sadar Bazaar; but those who are drawn to it fall into a committed relationship. That’s why the unusual city oasis is peopled with always the same faces. For instance, at a certain hour in any given afternoon, you’ll find the same three “putai wale” house painters sitting with legs crossed, their work-clothes splattered with colours. The same rat poison hawkers sit under the park’s peepal for lunch.

In the late morning hours, a corner of the park smells of fragrant pulao—a street-food seller daily cooks the dish in an adjacent yard.

When here, also look out for a man in safari suit. Biscuit trader Naseer Ahmad Khan’s “biskut ke thele” are permanently parked by the park. A cheerily optimistic man, he is full of stories about the locality and its people. He speaks in flowery Urdu, like a Ghalibian poet of yesteryear. If you say hello to him, he might treat you to chai and his biscuits, which he “imports” from the pilgrimage town of Ujjain.