Delhiwale: Meet the man without a name

No one knows his name and people ay he is unable to speak. The Man With No Name does not have many possessions, though, we find that he has a strong fate line.

He has no e-mail.
He has no mobile phone.
He has no Aadhaar card.
He has no voter id.
He has no PAN card.
He has no credit card.
He has no driving licence.
He has no BPL card.
He has no degree.
He has no name.

He has a long, white beard and his face bears a startling resemblance to the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, as seen in a famous photograph taken following the defeat of the 1857 uprising. (Mayank Austen Soofi / HT Photo)

Or, at least, nobody knows his name. He has not told anybody his name. People say he is unable to speak. They also say he cannot hear.

He has a long, white beard and his face bears a startling resemblance to the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, as seen in a famous photograph taken following the defeat of the 1857 uprising.

We meet this Mughal doppelganger one late night in Osama Dhaba, a kebab stall in Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti.

The Man With No Name is seated on a bench. The garbage-strewn street is lined with flower sellers.

The man spends the day quietly in the company of alm seekers. He arrived in the area about three years ago, says Muhammed Akib Raza of Osama Dhaba. Mr Raza says that the man is looked after by the kindness of the locality’s food-stall owners.

At night, The Man With No Name sleeps on the pavement, or on a flower cart. During the brief time we were together, he was barely communicative. His forehead has a mark as if somebody had drilled a hole into it. Perhaps it’s an old injury, Mr Akib says.

The Man With No Name is not the master of many possessions, although these days it is difficult to find a beggar without at least a mobile phone. But he has a walking stick. As we prepare to leave, the man opens his palm and we see that he has a long fate line.