The Walled City encyclopaedia.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Dictionary describes takhat as “any place raised above the ground for sitting, reclining, or sleeping.” Essentially a wooden cot, takhat also gives its name to an Old Delhi street. Gali Takhat Wali lies in the southern parts of the historic Walled City (already featured on this page, two years ago).

Well, there are many takhats, or wooden cots, in the world. And our small Purani Dilli happens to be big enough to accommodate one more street of this same name. The second Gali Takhat Wali lies in the northern parts of the Walled City.

This other Gali Takhat Wali has an ornately painted tall metallic gate displaying the street’s name in Hindi, English and Urdu—the calligraphies in these languages being depicted in blue, green and pink respectively.

While Old Delhi is over-saturated with crowds and cries, Gali Takhat Wali feels remote and lonely. This afternoon, it is sunk in silence and darkness. The gali is deserted. The house doors are shut. The paint on the brick walls appears to be fading; the bricks themselves are evoking sympathy for their plight—see photo. Only one door is half-open. The portion that is open is veiled by a curtain. The purdah is swelling out periodically, perhaps propelled by a high-speed pankha within the door.

Further along the gali, a severely emaciated brownish-black kitten is lying flat beside a parked scooter. Its body is trembling violently, the head is flapping up and down with a thudding sound. It is uttering out cries that appear to be… it is too terrible to put into words.

Old Delhi streets are full of cats. One frequently comes across dead cats, especially kittens—especially in the mornings when the streets are being cleaned, the tiny squashed bodies lying in the bins. But to come across a kitten, as it appeared to struggle desperately to hold on to life, is disturbing.

After a few paces, the street sharply veers right, goes past a wall bearing a signage for one M. Azharuddin with “40 years of experience in batteries.” Further ahead along the lane, a door opens into a corridor that culminates into an old-fashioned flight of staircase, the wall of which is embossed with a simple but deeply niched taak. This beautiful corridor is empty, until a man in white kurta-pajamas emerges from the staircase. He laughs uproariously when asked about the story behind the street’s name. “I have lived all my life in this gali and I don’t know why Takhat Wali got this name… nobody here will know!”

The street soon ends into a house, outside which a brownish-black cat is sitting serenely. Is it the aforementioned kitten’s mom?