A corridor in time.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Go to the Regal Cinema building in Connaught Place. Walk down the corridor to the far end overlooking Sansad Marg and stop. Can you hear the faint piano strains of Vinteuil’s Sonata drifting through the air?

You cannot. But if you are of a certain age, memory may supply what the corridor no longer does. Here was once Delhi’s grand piano shop.

Cities are shaped as much by what has vanished as by what still stands. They are composed of both the present and the past. In this stretch of Connaught Place, the two exist side by side.

At this quieter end of Regal Building stood A. Godin & Co. Founded in Quetta in 1900 by Celiano Godin, a young pianist and violinist, the business expanded to Bombay, Calcutta, Mussoorie and Delhi. The Delhi branch opened at Kashmere Gate in 1940 and quickly established a reputation. By 1947, when Lord Mountbatten arrived to oversee Partition, the shop was serving as the official tuner for his pianos.

Partition fractured the business. Quetta was lost to Pakistan. The British clientele shrank. Demand for pianos declined. Branches closed one after another, leaving Delhi as the last outpost. By 1960, A. Godin & Co. had diversified, adding sitars and tablas.

By the early 2000s, sitars hung in the windows, harmoniums lay stacked on tables and guitars lined the walls. Yet pianos still defined the room. Grand and upright models occupied nearly half the floor.

The staff reflected the shop’s musical character. Sajal Mallick, trained by his father as a piano repairer, would sit at a grand piano and play Rabindra Sangeet. Ishrat Ali, visually impaired and a long-time employee, could play a raga on any sitar handed to him.

The shop changed before it closed. A renovation in 2010 replaced stone floors with tiles, painted the counters red and moved most pianos into an inner room beneath maroon velvet covers. Not long after, the business shut. Dr. Lal PathLabs diagnostic lab took the place of the piano shop. From then onwards, citizens would come to the place no longer for music, but for getting tests for blood, urine, etc.

Other landmarks in the corridor too disappeared. Regal Cinema stopped screening films in 2017. People’s Tree, known for its clothing, cloth bags, brass jewellery and small bookstore, also closed some years ago.

Yet several old names remain. Kwality Restaurant, established in 1940, draws evening crowds and features pianist Mr Tony, who plays tunes of Hindi film love songs. The Shop, opened in 1969, survives, as does D. Dulichand & Bros., founded in 1935.

Besides, late into the night, another constant remains in the corridor. The elderly Baleshwar Rai runs one of Connaught’s last remaining newspaper and magazine stalls. He sits on the corridor floor, a few steps away from the former piano shop. He has worked here for nearly four decades, outlasting many of the businesses that once defined the area.

This afternoon, the glass façade of the diagnostic lab is reflecting the hurry-hurry pedestrians walking down the corridor where A. Godin & Co. stood.

One evening long ago, inside the piano shop, Ishrat Ali sat playing Raag Pahari on the sitar. On hearing the music, a group of people entered the shop, and gathered about him. It was like being part of an exclusive private concert.