Delhiwale: Changed, unchanged

A nostalgic look at a changing Delhi lane: Barber stall gone, tea stall remains. Bougainvilleas bloom, Sonia the dog stays. Life's constants amidst change.

Things change profoundly. Yet, they stay the same. This is a brief sketch of a lane, a small stretch of it.

Central Delhi’s Chelmsford Road. (HT Photo)

Let’s go back to a long-ago July afternoon in the pre-Covid era. Barber Ishtiaq’s stall, on a lane off central Delhi’s Chelmsford Road, would briefly become among the city’s most picturesque shaving spots. It lay under a dense shrubbery of pink bougainvilleas, which for some reason, always bloom most gloriously during the rainy season (unlike many summertime bougainvilleas elsewhere in the city). The flowers would make such an overwhelming impression that astonished eyes would register the modest stall underneath only a moment later.

The middle-aged barber had been manning the booth since 1980. His father, Ishaq, had founded the stall more than 40 years ago, long before the bougainvilleas were planted in the lawn behind the pavement wall. Ishitaq’s family lived in a Bulandshahr village in UP; he himself slept on the pavement close to the stall. During breezy days, the bougainvillea petals would fall like a monsoon shower from their branches; one or two petals landing into the shaving bowl on which his scissors and a razor lay crossed.

This July afternoon in 2024, the stall is missing—no mirror on the pavement wall, no barber’s chair on the pave (each leg would stand atop a piece of brick). Instead, a man is sitting under the bougainvilleas with a glass of chai. Through sign language, he explains that the barber is no longer here. (In fact, neither was he seen the previous year when the pink flowers were in their customary flush.)

Whatever, the bougainvilleas are again in bloom, cheerily indifferent to the absence of something that was so integral to the place.

And now the gaze moves to another stall, towards the left of the bougainvilleas — Umesh’s tea stall has been serving for 25 years. The barber went back to his village, Umesh says, preparing chai for two customers.

The exit of a neighbour has made the place a little lonesome, Umesh admits, but he has a long-time friend. He points to Sonia, the shaggy dog snoozing on a rickshaw. “Flowers come and go, people come and go, Sonia has remained with me.” The customers lightly giggle. Umesh turns to this reporter— “Will my life change if my name is printed in the newspaper?”

Meanwhile, the man under the pink flowers is looks meditative, sitting where Ishtiaq’s stall was.