Dante’s CP.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

In Dante’s Inferno, Hell has nine concentric circles, each denoting a separate level of sin and punishment. In Delhi’s Connaught Place (CP), the colonial-era shopping haven has four concentric circles, each denoting a separate level of experience. Last week, the first of these circles was tracked. It runs along CP’s heart-core: the Central Park.

The second circle is separated from the first by a circular road. It comprises of a long white colonnade supported by a series of white columns. Crammed with showrooms and restaurants, the Inner Circle has drastically changed over the decades, and yet its unique worn-out charm has remained unchanged. That makes it easy for citizens of certain age-bands to recreate their youth. All they have to do is stand in front of any random showroom or restaurant. In their memory’s eye, the place might rapidly revert into what it used to be 20 or 40 years ago. Back to being the (now extinct) landmark of their carefree days, where they might have experienced, say, a life-transforming breakup, or strolled by with a loved one long gone.

Indeed, what is today the H&M emporium used to be two adjacent bookstores–ED Galgotia & Sons and The New Book Depot. Levi showroom was Volga restaurant. UNIQLO showroom was the British Airways office. And the newsstand in F block, where print edition patrons would get the day-old New York Times (sourced from Air India flights arriving from New York), now sells mobile phone covers.

Down to our time, the Inner Circle faithfully reaches a poignant surreality during the late night hours, when all showrooms lie shut. Some guards sit on bedsheets spread along the deserted colonnade, outside the glass doors of the showrooms that employs them. One night, a lone guard was talking on mobile to his family in the village, two dogs snuggled beside him. Another guard was eating paratha and mango achar. In the next block, a mosquito net was held in place by CP’s archetypical white columns.

In contrast, the Inner Circle’s post-sunset evenings are moodier. It is a time when showrooms have shut down for the day, but not the restaurants. The circle is still crowded. Scores of street performers spread across different blocks. This evening, guitarist Anshul Riaji, sitting cross-legged on the colonnade floor, is crooning his own lyrics. His single-man audience is sitting on the floor, back leaning against the white column. This man is letting his face emote every twist of the singer’s sentimental lines.

Meanwhile, in F block, a romantic couple is silently holding hands on a metal bench under a large pilkhan. The tree was planted years ago by fruit seller Kesar. She was claimed by COVID’s second wave. Being a bottomless receptacle of memories, the Inner Circle is also a memorial to this little-known but extraordinary woman.