The Walled City dictionary.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

A man in lungi is trudging through this long, narrow, and dark tunnel, here in Old Delhi. He is carrying a hefty load on his head. Since the load is so unwieldy, and the tunnel is so cramped, the man gets stuck midway. He twists this way and that, shifts the load on his head, and only then is he able to make his way towards the tunnel’s exit.

The tunnel is otherwise utterly deserted and silent. As the eyes adjust to the darkness, the tunnel reveals itself to be an extremely cramped street lined on both sides with tall doorways. Each doorway opens into a spacious hall. Each hall has scores of men working silently amid tall stacks of sheets.

These are workshops to manufacture wedding cards and envelopes. One of the men in one of the workshops identifies the street as Patli Gali. The Patli Gali is indeed patli, or narrow, and ends into a workshop. This late morning, two envelope makers are at work in the workshop. They are extremely hospitable, instantly arranging for a glass of “malai mar ke” chai for an unannounced visitor. Continuing with the work, colleagues Swali and Mehmood make a few clarifications about their Patli Gali.

“The gali’s real name is Haji Yusuf Gali; the entire gali belonged to Haji Yusuf; he was a dhanna seth, he left for Pakistan during the partition,” says Swali.

“Patli Gali is a false name, given by ignorant labourers,” says Mehmood.

“Those labourers daily make many rounds from Chawri Bazar warehouses to our gali, bringing the maal,” says Swali, referring to the raw material needed to make wedding cards and envelopes.

Old Delhi has scores of envelope-making workshops, mostly based in and around Chawri Bazar, a center of wedding card trade. While many of the area’s envelope makers happen to be natives of places outside Delhi, these two men declare themselves to be “pushtaini Purani Dilli wale,” tracing inter-generational roots to the Walled City. Swali lives in nearby Kabadi Market, Mehmood lives in Chitli Qabar.

Shaking his head, Swali says, “We have been doing this same work in this same place since our childhood.”

Mehmood says. “It is like daily digging the same well… we have no other skill.”

Swali says: “In the evening, after the workshops shut down, and all the workers return home, the lane lies in ghupp andhera (pitch darkness).”

Mehmood mumbles on, shrugging his shoulders: “Same work, same street, day after day, year after year, life doesn’t change.”

The two men agree to pose for a portrait (see photo), after which they return to their work.