Delhiwale: Chronicling the march of time

Purani Dilli's historic quarter is undergoing profound changes, from new buildings to personal transitions, altering the fabric of daily life.

Once, this used to be an empty lot littered with the detritus of a collapsed mansion. Then a builder raised a multi-storey. It happened just last year.

A wall on Shah Abul Khair street has been painted over with drawings of old-style doorways and arches. (HT Photo)

Everything is changing in Purani Dilli. While childbirths at the Kasturba Gandhi maternity hospital and wedding banquets in Mahavir Vatika continue to be punctuated by regular burials in Dilli Gate Qabristan, the fabric of Walled City’s daily life is altering profoundly. Here’s a drone-like survey of some of the million public and private changes pulsating through a tiny segment of the historic quarter. Multiply these shifting minutiae of life a billion times over and this becomes an Homeric epic of the entire city.

Making it a point to smile “despite the tragedies in my home,” flower seller Lalmati, who would sit by the Turkman Gate roadside selling red roses and white champas, died some years ago. So did Turkman Gate beggar Mumtaz, who was abandoned by his family after he lost his legs in an accident. So did Turkman Gate’s sherbet seller Muhammed Rafi—his son Salman, who now mans the stall, converted half of the place into a footwear cart.

Early this month, Cheeku, the kitten who lived with his human family in Pahari Rajaan, died of a fever, despite being treated in an animal hospital in Tis Hazari, and later at a more expensive private clinic in Preet Vihar.

Homemaker Shahana of Gali Shakti Mandir last year replaced the household’s traditional dastarkhan—the plastic mat spread on the floor at meal time—with a dining table, drastically changing the family tradition.

Poet Iffat Zarrin’s husband Shamim Siddiqui, aka Shalimar Cinema wale, died in January following a prolonged illness, leaving her alone in her book-lined house in Gali Hakimji Wali.

Disrupting a lifetime of rustling out the Mughlai dishes of nihari and sheerrmal at his modest establishment in Choori Wallan Chowk, cook Nawab Mursalin suddenly started to sell goat feed.

Young graduate Aqsa married this winter, shifting out of her mother’s home in Kucha Chelan to her husband’s house in Laxmi Nagar, outside the Walled City.

Tailor “master” Javed Iqbal moved from Laxmi Nagar to the Walled City with wife Rubina and little daughter Rida, settling down in a one-room flat in Chitli Qabar Chowk, just above Bhai Shehzad’s chai stall, the principal furniture being a mattress.

Homemaker Sabeeha’s nest in Gosht Wali Pahari grew emptier—elder son Zubair moved to Amsterdam in February; younger son Kabeer moved to Leeds in September.

Weeks ago, a raggedy wall with broken windows on Shah Abul Khair street was at long last cleaned of its perennial garbage, and painted over with drawings of old-style doorways and arches, plus the slogan—“I love Purani Dilli.”