Delhiwale: This way to Gali Captain Wali

Gali Captain Wali in Old Delhi, once lively, now feels deserted. Saif, a machine repairer, reflects on its past, while silence prevails in narrow lanes.

Captains lived here, just don’t ask what kind of captains—pleads machine repairer Saif. His workshop is scooped into a lonesome stretch of Gali Captain Wali in Old Delhi. This afternoon, the narrow lane is empty. All the machines in Saif’s workshop are lying mended, the repairer says. That’s why he is standing idle by his counter, leaning out purposelessly into the darkened passage. Rubbing his forehead, he says that “perhaps these were the captains of the Indian Air Force...now no captains live here.” Suddenly, a side door opens and a man emerges. The same moment, a third person steps into the lane. The scene no longer looks lonesome. See photo.

Gali Captain Wali in Old Delhi. (HT Photo)

Gali Captain Wali is like a plotless art house movie that keeps the viewer in wonder about what might—or might not—happen next. The street allows entry through the chaotic Kucha Chalan street. The opening is truly a hole between two bazar shops. The cramped way ahead is flanked by featureless facades. A blue smudge on the yellow wall turns out to be a kite’s drawing.

A long cul-de-sac diverts the curious stroller into a rightward turn. It is deserted. A window is partly open, showing a room furnished with a hospital-style bed. The side-table is coated with dust. So is the white sheet on the bed. But the floor is clean. The window is pasted over by a flier of some Baba Sulemani claiming to be a specialist in “jadu-tona (magic) and love marriages.”

Further ahead the gali, the same silence lingers along a row of firmly shut doors. One door is ajar. Labourers within are digging the earth—or so it seems, for it is too dark to clearly discern. One worker says that the old house is being built anew.

But the next house must not be touched by any shovel. Its old-fashioned entrance is sculpted with delicately rendered floral patterns. The beautiful door is defaced with a flyer for matchmaking “all over India and all over the world in every caste and category.”

Despite so much scope for aimless meandering, Gali Captain Wali actually occupies a very small portion of the Walled City. What it has accomplished is to have expanded itself through circuitous passages (much like the Walled City itself, which otherwise occupies a very small portion of the city of Delhi). So you keep on walking and walking along the gali and...you walk on under an arched portal, and you walk out into the daytime din of Sir Syed Ahmad Road.