Delhiwale: A Majnu Ka Tila masseur

Majnu Ka Tila, a Tibetan enclave in Delhi, is bustling with visitors, while local masseur Sanker struggles to attract customers amidst the crowd.

Majnu Ka Tila, aka MT, is like a shrine to Dalai Lama. Photos bearing the Tibetan leader’s face show up on the walls of cafés, bakeries, restaurants, hotel receptions, curio shops, street shacks, street walls, and even on electric poles. One stall is hawking Dalai Lama dolls.

The masseur is absentmindedly gazing towards an unending procession of people walking into MT through gate no. 5. (HT)

The north Delhi enclave of Tibetan refugees also happens to be a long-time karma bhoomi for one of our fellow Indians. Sanker is MT’s masseur-cum-ear cleaner.

This Sunday afternoon, the middle-aged gent is stationed outside MT’s gate no. 5. He is sitting silently on a ramshackle bench, beside a local drunkard. “I have yet to receive the day’s first customer,” says Sanker. Dressed in a striped shirt and black pants, he could be mistaken for an office clerk, until you notice his informal chappals, along with his six glass bottles containing badam, til, nariyal, chameli, fulful, and desi oil, respectively.

The masseur is absentmindedly gazing towards an unending procession of people walking into MT through gate no. 5. The super-narrow alleys within are currently so packed with weekend visitors that two impromptu queues have formed up in opposite directions. The moment a person pauses by a trinket stall, or a Korean fast food kiosk, everyone in the queue has to momentarily halt. This is frustrating, but MT’s pull among Delhiwale is understandable. The place feels profoundly different from the rest of Dilli. It is like travelling in a picturesque foreign country without the hassle of getting a visa.

Until a decade ago, Sanker would walk more easily through these same lanes, hawking his services. “There were fewer hotels, fewer daytime visitors.” The wild upsurge in MT’s popularity hasn’t benefited his business though. These visitors, he says waving towards the youthful crowd, care for momos and cakes, not for his massage oils.

Sanker’s father, and father’s father, were ear cleaners in their native Haryana. He left his homeland two decades ago to launch himself in the capital as a “professional ear cleaner.” A chance encounter with a masseur soon followed. “He became my guru, and taught me the techniques of massaging.” After touring the city, young Sanker picked MT as his area of operations “because it had no ear cleaner or massage walla,” and soon enough “many Tibetti log would ask me for champi maalish and foot massage.” Sanker’s 20-minute foot massage is priced at 300 rupees.

Some idle minutes later, the masseur gets up and walks into gate no. 5. Wading deeper into the lanes, he quietly sits by a glass-walled showroom, facing Tibet Tours & Travels. A continuous stream of visitors’ feet goes past his oil bottles. Gazing at a Dalai Lama poster, Sanker explains that the man in the photo is “Bhagwan Buddha ka sevadar.”