Chitli’s chandelier.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The small chandelier emits a faint glow. The many people walking along the streets aren’t looking up at it, nor at any of the other lamps. But the overhanging decorations at the market intersection are brightening the midnight. This is the latter half of the Muslim month of Ramzan, and the nights in some parts of Walled City have grown far livelier than the days, which are spent in abstaining from food.

Despite the late hour, Old Delhi’s Chitli Qabar Chowk is kinetic with the sparkle of the ongoing season. Five years ago, the historic area was in a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. The customary bustle of the place had vanished. The Chowk that pulsates with so much life would lay deserted, and after sunset it would plunge into “ghup andhera (pitch darkness)”—in the words of a dweller whose house overlooks the Chowk. The dweller particularly missed the usual window view from her bedroom—“I would see no kebab walla, no chai walla, no flower walla, no rickshaw walla…”

The following year, Delhi was traumatised by the brutal second wave of coronavirus. Chitli Qabar too was a witness to the time. The announcement of deaths from the surrounding mosques would traverse freely through the empty streets. The occasional traffic along the Chowk would primarily comprise of masked citizens carrying oxygen cylinders on the backseat of scooters and bikes. Small processions of mourners would pass through the Chowk on their way to Dilli Gate graveyard. Rickshaws would shuttle along carrying the masahri—metal stretcher to carry a dead body. A kebab stall had a poster stuck on the counter—“Please wear mask, no sitting permitted.” The month of Ramzan coincided with that second wave, and the only shop that stayed open in the Chowk during the darkened night would be the pharmacy across the street from the tiny dargah of Hazrat Chitli, which gives its name to the chowk.

Tonight, all the shops in the overcrowded Chowk are open, teeming with citizens. Even the florists are doing brisk business at this late hour. People are eating, buying, selling, yelling, laughing, and choking up the intersecting lanes. And the chandelier over the Chowk is continuing to emit its faint light.