The Walled City encyclopedia

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

This Old Delhi street should be called Gali Good Luck. The street has Good Luck Tailors, Good Luck Tea Stall and Good Luck Hair Salon.

The place is actually Kucha Chelan, and it actually has a very bad luck past. Following the 1857 uprising, the avenging British massacred 1,400 citizens here. Those martyrs must have comprised some of Old Delhi’s wealthiest gentry, for Kucha Chelan’s name is said to have evolved from Chehel Amiran, forty wealthy men.

Today, no sign of that violent history exists. All is serene along the lane, the serenest aspect being a small gurudwara. Every morning, an elderly lady is seen seated crosslegged beside the holy Guru Granth Sahib, alone chanting the prayers. Her meditative singsong voice streams out into the silent lane, empty during this early hour.

By late morning, a small stretch of the street, close to the gurudwara, becomes the karambhoomi of Bhai Naeem. His street establishment is Kucha Chelan’s living heritage. As any Purani Dilli ghumakkar will attest, the neighbourhood kalai wale are the Walled City’s endangered specie. The traditional coppersmiths used to gloss up old faded copper/brass utensils with new coats of tin. Bhai Naeem happens to be one of those few remaining kalai wale. All day long, he sits by the crowded street-side, busy at work, surrounded by his punkha machine, bhatti and sandasi, his newly polished utensils glowing brilliantly.

Otherwise the Kucha stays submerged in dull shade, crammed tight with shops and residences, veined with numerous side-alleys, each a self-contained universe. One alley—Gali Mandir Wali–is lined with a book binding workshop, two tailoring units, a travel agency, a chai stall, a computer institute, a beauty parlour, many houses, a dead peepal tree, and Shri Nav Durga Mandir. The mandir gives its name to the alley.

Another side-alley, Gali Salim Muhammed Shah, is very small, but is home to the area’s stateliest residence. Qaiser Manzil is more than a hundred years old; its beautiful porch frequently gets chirpy with the soft melodious gossiping of its resident sparrows.

These days though, the main gossip among the Kucha’s humans is about the fresh news from Bhai Bhoore Hotel. The eatery has hiked the rate of its single roti to six rupees and of its double roti to nine rupees.

Life along a lane

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