Delhiwale: Khan Market lane-wise

Labourers in shirts and pants are kneeling on the market’s dusty floor, fitting a paving tile into place

Labourers in shirts and pants are kneeling on the market’s dusty floor, fitting a paving tile into place. Nearby, two women labourers with their heads covered by their sari pallus are working among similar tiles and pans of mortar, while barefoot children sit at the edge of a newly paved stretch. Now, a woman in a crisp outfit walks past the labourers, sunglasses on her head, a white Satya Paul shopping bag on one arm.

Delhiwale: Khan Market lane-wise

Were this scene of labourers paving a path for well-heeled shoppers in a novel, the setting might have seemed too pointed. This is the front lane in Khan Market, one of India’s most expensive shopping places. The New Delhi Municipal Council is laying new paving along the stretch, says a shop owner.

Khan Market is 75 this year. Throughout the anniversary, this series will return to the market, trying to understand the place it holds in the city and how it lives with the reputation. This is the fourth story in the series.

As for the market’s front lane, its regulars include top politicians, artists, writers, bureaucrats, diplomats and expats. Here, one overhears, in stray snatches of conversation, that someone returned from New York yesterday or that someone’s child studies at Ashoka University. In Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time, stumbling on pavement stones famously bring back a memory to the narrator. The front lane’s new tiles, too, will gather associations in time. For now, the paving workers’ children are sitting beside the path where shoppers will soon walk.

A few evenings ago, the work was under way along the market’s south side, outside the Saint G leather footwear showroom. Above the labourers, “NEW YORK” shone beneath the store’s name, while wall-sized photographs showed models posing on foreign streets. Against this background, one labourer stood on a piece of broken pavement as another crouched over a tile cutter.

That evening, at the entrance of this same showroom, two women labourers crouched among loose tiles, tools in hand. Behind the glass, a mannequin stood in a floral dress and white sneakers, an “End of Season Sale” sign offering up to 50% off. The labouring women wore rubber chappals. Meanwhile, shoppers were passing within steps of the workers without turning to look. During those few minutes, the workers, for their part, kept their eyes on the paving.

This evening, the paving outside that leather footwear showroom looks complete. The new tiles are reflecting the light from the showroom. No labourers are in sight. Shoppers are walking past, and from behind the glass, the showroom staff and mannequins are watching the shoppers go by. It is the Khan Market front lane one commonly sees.