Delhiwale: People-gazing at Green Park Market

You just have to sit on a bench in the market to become a part of this rare human ecosystem.

Here’s a setting resembling a peculiar collage one doesn’t see anywhere else in Delhi.

Park yourself on one of the comfy benches at Green Park market . (Mayank Austen Soofi / HT Photo)

By simply parking ourselves on one of those comfy benches at Green Park market we’re transformed into shameless voyeurs watching a surreal world parading past.

Grannies in worn cardigans rub shoulders with hipsters sporting hi-fi hairdos.

You spot a closer encounter between a young couple — the lad crooning a Hindi love song — and a man jogging past in comfortably fitted Bermuda shorts and a monkey cap.

It’s like hanging around in the Malgudi market square in RK Narayan’s fictional world where everybody knows everybody else.

Our sidewalk is more cosmopolitan than Malgudi’s. A barista serving coffee on the sidewalk is dressed in traditional dhoti and kurta.

Then there’s that shop selling quaint DVDs, not far from a stationery store with a fax machine. A workshop further down the sidewalk not only repairs TVs but also old radios. There’s also a clinic hawking “body contouring” and “anti-aging” services. And between a henna parlour and an empty bench stands a shakarkandi seller, with an elegant white-haired woman as his sole customer at that moment.

Aware that such people-watching luxury isn’t available in most Delhi bazaars, we just go on slouching idly, perusing the citizenry: a pursuit as engaging as any Netflix shows.