On domestic architecture.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Purani Dilli merchant Saeed Mirza lives with his siblings and their families in a 150-year-old house. It possesses architectural elements of a quintessential Walled City mansion. Every room for instance has at least one taak, the arch-shaped niche scooped into the wall.

The joint family is set to move to a recently built residence on the same street. The new “flat-style” house has no taak. Indeed, the taak, that has so long been an integral part of the Walled City’s old-fashioned household architecture—it is almost a family member!— is now nearing extinction. (The custom of taak of course isn’t limited to the historic quarter).

In a typically traditional Walled City mansion, the taak would be positioned at the centre of the wall where it was originally used as a shelf to keep something precious on it — maybe a sacred book or a departed elder’s framed portrait. Post-sunset, it used to be the place for the earthen chirag whose flame would cast flickering shadows within the niche. During the olden times when people sat on mattresses laid out on the floor, a gaw-takiya pillow would be placed under the central taak (a room could have more than one taak). Many families would also use taaks to keep everyday knickknacks within easy reach such as fruits, paandan, reading glasses, Diamond Bakery paape, medicines, etc. Naturally the taak was that one spot in the house where people kept things and promptly forgot about them. Hence the popular saying, “Usko to taak mein rakh diya”—implying that an acquaintance who’s been forgotten must have been put away on the taak.

The lack of even a single taak in the new residence of the Mirzas shows the progression of evolving aesthetics in household architecture. It also suggests that some old traditions are impractical for the new times. Saeed Mirza explains: “Old houses had thick walls… our old house, built by our great-grandfather, has walls about 20 inches thick, making it possible to have deep taaks—we have 18 taaks!” He pauses for effect. “But new houses usually have walls only four inches thick due to space constraints… not enough to contain the taak.”

In their new taak-free house, the soft-spoken gent says, all the everyday knickknacks will be crammed in cupboards and drawers instead.

Meanwhile this evening at his ancestral house, Saeed Mirza graciously agrees to pose for a portrait with wife, Bushra, and sister Shahida. The couple stand by the heirloom taak, the grandest in the mansion. See photo.