One of Delhi’s 369 villages.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The universe here is idyllic. The lanes are litter-free, the nooks are quiet, groceries are amply stocked, multi-stories look homely, the overall ambiance removed from the anxieties of city life… and it all is contained within chaotic Delhi.

Jia Sarai is one of the many urban villages in the national capital. The patterns of its daily life are set by a gentry that is youthful, but which doesn’t display the brashness linked with youth. The young men and women living here tend to be studious, and indeed are extremely focused on their career. Almost every village home sells its services as a boarding house for these ambitious outstation students preparing for competitive exams, including the notoriously tough entrance for the Indian Institute of Technology. (The next-door IIT Delhi must be to these aspirants the very essence of the phrase “so near yet so far.”)

An afternoon stroll in the village shows quite a good number of people crowding the lanes. They are mostly quiet, or chatting in hushed tones if huddled together. The village buildings actually are nosier. Almost every second door displays a loud signboard for either “To let for boys,” or “To let for girls.” The village’s primary commerce is also evident from its many hoardings. Consider a sample: Anand Institute of Mathematics is close to Friends Library, which is close to Brainstorm Achievers, which is close to Sahitya Classes, which is close to Delhi Instituite of Public Speaking Spoken English, which is close to Chemistry for You, which is close to two groceries named Aroma Books and Deserve & Desire. Meanwhile, some wall flyers are advertising “Part time jobs for students.”

Now a village chai shop staffer appears, on way to home-deliver a thermos of chai to a couple of “students.” (Maybe those scholars are struggling this moment with physics or chemistry equations, and need the chai’s caffeine-triggered alertness.) “You must try Nepali ki chai, his stall is famous,” says the young delivery man, rushing to his destination.

The only person encountered during the course of the walk who is not looking in his 20s happens to be Shobh Nath Rai. He says he is in his 70s. For 14 years, the venerable man has been selling socks and scarves on the main lane. He attests to the fact that the village is unusually clean by Delhi’s abysmal standards. He remarks that every shop in the “gaon” keeps a bin outside for customers and passers-by.

The village’s extraordinary cleanliness is not the only factor that distinguishes it from Delhi’s other villages (and non-villages). Almost all the men roaming along the lanes are in western-style shorts or trousers. Nobody has been sighted, at least so far, in the typical village costume of dhoti and turban (a sight otherwise common even in the uber-fashionable Hauz Khas Village). It is only later in a tea stall that a man is finally spotted in turban and dhoti—see photo.