An iconic place’s anniversary year.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

In 1951, as Delhi hosted the inaugural Asian Games at Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium, a quieter event unfolded elsewhere in the city. It was the founding of a modest bazar that would become one of the nation’s most recognisable destinations. This year marks 75 years of Khan Market.

Today, Khan Market means different things to different people. The intellectuals nurture strong opinions about it, positive as well as negative. But one thing is certain: Khan Market cannot be ignored. Its significance goes beyond being a site to spot the powerful, the famous, or the super-rich. It in fact commands an indelible spot in Delhi’s—and India’s—collective imagination, indicating how the capital sees itself and how others see the capital.

Over the year, this page will repeatedly return to Khan Market, trying to investigate its uniqueness in the city. We start with its origins.

Khan Market was named after freedom fighter Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (oh no, it was actually named after his lesser-known brother Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan!). In the beginning, there were 154 shops and 74 flats. The setup evoked the small town environ of neeche dukaan, upar makaan—meaning shops below, and houses above. The early Khan Market residents were Punjabi entrepreneurs rebuilding their lives after having been obliged to leave their ancestral lands during Partition. Indeed, for a period, the market retained the middle-class milieu of a bazar-cum-mohalla. Shopkeepers knew customers by name, groceries were handed on credit, and children played cricket in the lanes. “Aunties” and “uncles” were known by flat numbers. Apparently neighbours hopped rooftops to visit each other. While the space behind the market that doubled as a park had a fuvvara, though it is hard to tell whether water would spout from the fountain.

This homely texture began to fray in the late 1980s. Rising footfall to the market pushed up rents. The market’s proximity to the capital’s diplomatic enclave, and to the official residences of senior bureaucrats, played a part in helping build its current clientele of expats and VVIPs. Colonising commerce naturally clambered upstairs to the flats of “uncles” and “aunties,” knocking at the house doors. Families moved out, renting or selling their homes. The cozy drawing rooms and bedrooms became cafés and showrooms. By the 1990s, new businesses were paying unprecedented rents, marking a profound alteration to the market’s character. The changes were irreversible, ultimately forcing the boondi laddus and gulab jamuns of Khan Market’s hyperlocal Bengal Sweets to give way to macaroons and mille-feuilles of Paris-style patisseries.

This Saturday evening, the market’s Front Lane and Middle Lane are super-packed with New Delhi’s lah-di-dah gentry, even though some showrooms have already shut for the day. A citizen steps out of Anokhi, stating in a brief conversation that “when I’m in Khan Market, it is hard to leave.”

PS: Photo shows citizen Julfikar standing on the pave that faces Khan Market’s Front Lane