Delhiwale: A cubicle like no other

A crate-maker’s unique establishment.

It looks like a cave, but completely of wood. The tiny store in Old Delhi’s Galli Choori Wallan street has its doorway flanked on either side with a tall column of petis, or wooden crates. The boxy space inside the doorway is crammed on three sides by stacks of wooden slabs. And here sits Liyakatullah. It’s a sluggish afternoon and he is having his post-lunch chai. From across the street, the scene resembles a Mughal miniature painting.

In his 50s, Liyakatullah makes petis for bazar merchants.

In his 50s, the nimble-limbed Liyakatullah makes petis for bazar merchants. “Before me, my father Barkatullah would sit here and make similar petis. Before my father, my grandfather Kifayatullah would sit here and make similar petis.”

Like many people in the Walled City, Liyakatullah talks of the past as if it was something that had happened this morning, just after breakfast. “This lane used to be full of tinke wale, who would make tinke wali tokri,” he says, referring to little baskets woven out of jute grass. In the old times, he says, the shopkeepers here would have their lunch delivered from home in those quaint baskets—they are now replaced by plastic baskets. The tinke wale workers are gone too. “Only a few elderly people can tell you that this street wasn’t known as Galli Choori Wallan, or the bangle sellers street, but as Galli Tinke Walli.”

By now the tea break is over, and Liyakatullah retreats to the concerns of his unique cubicle.