Delhiwale: The Nepal amidst us

In the relatively inexpensive rooms of South Delhi’s Chirag Delhi village, young working people from Nepal live alongside residents from other parts of the country

In the relatively inexpensive rooms of South Delhi’s Chirag Delhi village, young working people from Nepal live alongside residents from other parts of the country. Nepali is heard in the cramped lanes along with Hindi, and shop signs advertise “money order service to Nepal.” Gurugram’s Rajiv Nagar, too, has a substantial Nepali presence, while a music shop near the city’s bus terminus has long stocked songs in Nepali. Hailing from Nepal’s well-known political Koirala family, actor Manisha Koirala did part of her education at the Army Public School in Dhaula Kuan. At Delite cinema in Daryaganj, Mukti Ram Parajuli, a native of Nepal, has worked since 1992, spending most of his Delhi life behind the snack counter.

Delhiwale: The Nepal amidst us

Indeed, Nepal is present in Delhi in all sorts of ways, some obvious, some you might walk by without noticing. These days, the cataclysmic flash floods in the Himalayan country makes one notice these connections more. For many Nepali residents of Delhi, the news must carry an added anxiety, especially when family and friends are back home. They are our fellow residents, woven into the daily life of this city.

This said, some of Delhi’s connections with Nepal have disappeared with time. One of those was the iconic Everest Bakery Café in an alley in the hotel district of Paharganj. Founded by a man from Nepal, its banner said in Nepali that Nepali food was served: “Yahan Nepali khana painchh.” A foreign backpacker might sit barefoot on the low platform outside, while the window advertised “Espresso Coffee” in large yellow letters. Inside, the tiny café could accommodate only half a dozen people at a time. Wicker chairs and low tables filled the space. Nepali love songs played in the background. A Kathmandu newspaper reporting the 2001 royal family massacre was framed on a wall. The menu included Nepali thali. Yak cheese came from Kathmandu.

Everest Bakery Café belonged to a time when far more Western backpackers stayed in Paharganj’s inexpensive guesthouses before travelling elsewhere in the subcontinent. Kathmandu was on many of their routes. Thamel Street in Kathmandu was the Mecca of the hippie civilisation, with its guesthouses, cafés, trekking stores and bookshops. Paharganj aspired to something of Thamel’s grandness. It never quite got there. While Everest Bakery Café shut at some point, Nepali eateries continue to dot the surrounding lanes, some taking their name from the same mountain peak. They will all be surveyed soon on these pages.

Delhi’s links with Nepal are not confined to real places and people. One of them exists in a comic. In Tintin in Tibet, the way to the Forbidden Land passes through Delhi and Kathmandu. Tintin lands at Palam, leaves from what is now Safdarjung Airport, and in between encounters the Qutub Minar, Red Fort and a Chawri Bazar cow.

Then there is the Embassy of Nepal in Mandi House, a very elegant building. Beneath its grounds runs the underground Blue Line between Mandi House and Barakhamba Road. Every weekday, thousands of us office-going Delhiwale travel beneath Nepal. Today, that nearness carries sorrow.