The Walled City encyclopaedia.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The centuries-old Walled City retains almost nothing of its original character. Even so, its ‘hoods and streets preserve within their names a sense of Old Delhi’s past. The names have mostly been derived from particular people as well as particular communities who inhabited the historic quarter during its early days. Indeed, these place-names and the contemporary life they contain tell us simultaneously of the way we were, and of the way we may turn out to be tomorrow.

But what to say about a Purani Dilli gali that has no name?

The peaceful residential lane lies within the otherwise noisy Kucha Chelan, which is a massive sprawl of homely streets and crowded bazars. This afternoon, the lane is deserted, though it juts out into a chaotic bazar. Soon, a man in grey appears out from a door. Iftikhar Ali Hashmi confirms that his lane has no name. “Maybe because our gali is too short,” he says. But an even shorter gali exists nearby, with a name of its own—Gali Nal Wali has already been chronicled on this page. The genial man stays silent, briefly. He says that suffixing the name of the much larger Kucha Chelan to his house number is address enough for prompt home deliveries.

Having retired as a school lecturer, Iftikhar Ali remains active as a qazi. In fact, he returned a while ago from distant Noida after overseeing a wedding. Noida is also the place where his son, a B.Tech student, daily commutes for his university classes. Although the family roots have always been in the Walled City, Iftikhar Ali has been a resident of the street since the turn of the century. “Earlier, we were living some lanes away in Gali Madrasa Hussain Baksh, but over the years it became too noisy… like most places in Old Delhi.”

The nameless gali is reasonably quiet, despite its proximity to the crowded bazar outside. For a long time it had only three houses, until one of the houses was replaced recently by a multistorey apartment complex. “The vacant flats will be tenanted, the lane will get crowded,” Iftikhar Ali mutters, slowly taking a turn in the street. Posing for a portrait, he goes back to the subject of his street’s name. “My father was a vakeel (lawyer), so at one point after shifting to the gali, we thought of naming it Gali Vakeel Wali…”

As it happened, that didn’t work out.