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City Landmark – Blue of Bara Bazar, Kashmere Gate

City Landmark - Blue of Bara Bazar Kashmere Gate

One more layer over the past

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The sky is blue. The market is bluer.

This is the same old Kashmere Gate, just touched up a bit. The blue was rendered early this year by the local market’s association, says a shopkeeper. To be sure, Kashmere Gate’s Bara Bazar is a sprawling enterprise filled with a variety of businesses. The blue is limited to its handsome colonnade that overlooks the historic St James Church.

A dark cerulean shade has been painted on the colonnade’s slim metallic columns, on its intricately patterned wrought iron screens, on the corridor’s ceiling, and also on the shop shutters. The blue shirt of a fruit seller stationed outside the colonnade this afternoon is matching the colonnade’s—see photo. (The friendly man requested his name not be shared)

The market colonnade runs along a worn-out block of scruffy doorways, darkened staircases, and bruised walls. One protruding balcony is weedy with fresh green grass. You can tell that the elegance of the place is detached from its present. It is part of something that has been long gone, like the twinkling light of night stars, taking centuries to reach us while the stars are already dead.

The area teems with ghosts of places past. Martin Dry Cleaners shut down some years ago. Next to Martin Drycleaners was the Mirabelle restaurant. In 1947, the new owners, who were partition refugees from Pakistan, renamed it Khyber. The restaurant became wildly popular for its meaty cuisine. Khyber’s teakwood cabinets gradually gave way to plastic flowers. It closed about 20 years ago. The two liquor stores Carlton and Spencer & Co met the same kismet.

Indeed, most of the earlier landmarks here have been replaced by banks, ATMs, and car parts shops. A few early landmarks continue to exist, such as the Delhi Gun House. Entering the spacious shop is like landing into a world of silence and slow time. It resembles an office, with shelves full of old file folders. There must be guns on sale, but they aren’t visible, at least to this reporter. The friendly staffers exude the grace of those rare people who never let go of the opportunity to say “thank you” and “please.”

Meanwhile, over weeks and months, Kashmere Gate’s blue has adroitly absorbed the quintessential Delhi patina of dust and smog. The painted coating is looking fatigued and bluesy, like the rest of Kashmere Gate.

Kashmere Gate blues

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City Landmark - Blue of Bara Bazar Kashmere Gate

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City Landmark - Blue of Bara Bazar Kashmere Gate

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City Landmark - Blue of Bara Bazar Kashmere Gate

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City Landmark - Blue of Bara Bazar Kashmere Gate

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City Landmark - Blue of Bara Bazar Kashmere Gate

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