A vanishing bread out of a vanishing architecture

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

During sunny noons, the cobwebbed strands veiling the door-latch would glisten like silken gossamers. The door itself lay padlocked, its wooden surface laden with decades of grime. Whatever, for a long time, the arched doorway has been evoking a disappearing style of residential architecture. (Although it must be said that the hurry-hurry locals rarely pause to admire the beautiful doorway, an everyday sight to them).

Nestled within the historic enclave of Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti, the darwaza is adorned on both sides by an arched taak, itself a disappearing architectural element. The central Delhi locality in fact bears a good number of monuments that are significant to Delhi’s architectural history. The cramped locality’s anonymous alleys themselves used to showcase the finer aesthetics of the city’s architectural past. They were lined with houses bearing similar doorways, according to an elderly calligrapher who has lived all his years in Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti. Many of those houses have been replaced by modern multi-storied housing, he says.

And then. Some weeks ago, something unusual happened to this doorway. The grimy lock was unfastened, the cobwebbed latch was lifted, and the darwaza creaked open, leading to the darkened room within.

The same room is now well-lit, and hosts Shahi Sheermal. It is the name of young Vasim’s bakery specialising in the age-old sheermal bread, which too is fast disappearing from our bazars. This morning, Vasim is preparing a new batch of sheermal rotis on a corner table, each roti is richly encrusted with chunks of dry fruit. A large metal tandoor, acquired from Meerut, is placed at the centre of the room. Padded in black leather jacket, the young man says he took up the place on rent from its owner, who runs a kebab shop.

A UP native, Vasim began his baking career three years ago as an apprentice in “Nasir Bhai’s” sheermal establishment, nearby. “But this is my own business… I borrowed money from Ammi-Abbu to set it up… I have already returned the amount to them.” Standing by the door, he remarks that occasionally “groups of foreigners gather in front of the darwaza and stare at it.”

A few days ago, Vasim plastered the darwaza with the laminated photos of his rotis. “I make plain sheermal, normal badaam sheermal, fully loaded badaam sheermal, full pista badaam sheermal, and top badam sheermal.” Living some lanes away, he walks every morning to the darwaza, unlocks the door, lights up the tandoor, and starts kneading the dough—using “maida, sooji, besan, ghee, dhoodh, custard powder, baking powder, elaichi dana, geeen elaichi…”

The doorway came up about a century ago as part of a mansion, a passerby says knowingly. Over the years, the mansion disintegrated into separate households. Nothing of it stands today as wholly as this old darwaza, now rejuvenated into a portal to this hopeful citizen’s enterprise.

Old darwaza’s new life

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