Delhiwale: In search of taaks past

Taaks, traditional household alcoves, are still found in Delhi, holding sacred items or everyday knick-knacks. They are disappearing but remain in old localities.

This one holds the patriarch’s framed Bachelor of Engineering certificate. The one in the other house has a copy of Shree Ramcharitmanas.

A dairy had its taak claimed by two glasses. (HT Photo)

Each is a taak.

An arch-shaped niche scooped into wall, taak is an element of traditional household architecture lost to the past. Well, almost. For they are still spotted in Delhi, especially in the Walled City, and in the Capital’s very many villages. Taaks were celebrated on these pages some years ago, but while fast disappearing from our world, the region is so full of old taaks that you stumble into fresh new sightings every other day.

In a home, a taak would generally be at the centre of the wall and would be used to keep something sacrosanct — maybe a holy book, or a scented agarbatti.

When Delhi homes had no Western-style sofa and we sat on mattresses laid out on the floor, the long cylindrical gao-takiya pillow would be placed directly under the central taak. Many households exploited the taak for keeping fruits, dawai ka patta, dadi’s paan box, dada’s dentures, didi’s college I-card, bhayya’s ainak, and other household knick-knacks we liked to have within easy reach.

Naturally, it was in taak where we kept things and later looked for them everywhere but in the taak. That gave birth to the saying— “Usko to taak mein rakh diya,” indicating a relative so out of sight and out of mind that they might as well be in the taak.

These alcoves are never spotted in new houses, rendered obsolete by sideboards and shelves. Besides the walls of our suburban flats are no longer thick enough to contain a taak.

That said, cobwebby taaks linger on in old localities. The other day a taak in a hole-in-the-wall Purani Dilli chai shop was crammed with a half-full pack of Harvest Gold double rotis. A nearby dairy had its taak claimed by two glasses.

Some taaks in ruined buildings are left with only a faint impression of their arched outline.

Then there are taaks that existed for show. Too shallow for use, they were just an impression on the wall. Roshanpura in Gurugram is rich in them.

Without doubt, the best taaks are those that continue to be active players in daily life. Sabeeha Jhinjhianvi in Old Delhi’s Chitli Qabar chats daily for a few minutes on WhatsApp video with her son, who works in Amsterdam. While doing so, she goes about her household chores, her mobile phone (with her son in it) standing upright in the living room taak.