The Old Delhi encyclopedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Lakshmi is standing at her doorway, talking. This is her break between two shifts. She cooks vegetarian food twice a day in a large mansion not far from here. Her mother-in-law worked there before her. After she died, Lakshmi took her place. For now, Lakshmi is at home, in a courtyard at the farthest end of Gali Godoya in Old Delhi. She explains that this is a katra, a courtyard ringed with residences. In earlier times, she says, people of the same profession lived in a katra. Not anymore. Last week, my Old Delhi street series reached its 222nd street. The series aims to chronicle every street in the historic Walled City, recording

The Old Delhi encyclopedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Poetry in some form is everywhere in Gali Qasim Jan. Not the poetry of Mirza Ghalib, who spent his last years on this Old Delhi street, but the poetry of shop names. De Cut Salon. Tip Top Gents Parlour. Grocers Gallery. Rafaa Cafe. Tamanna Guest House. The names hang above the cramped street on boards in English, Hindi and Urdu. Electric wires hang higher. Monkeys travel across shop banners. Much of the street’s old architecture is hidden behind signboards. Above Al Faiz Bakery rises a yellow facade. Projecting wooden beams support the upper floor, where tall wooden screens run along the street-facing front. Below, the overhang rests on a succession of curved brackets.

The Old Delhi encyclopedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] People would slip walking here. The Old Delhi road was notorious for its slippery surface, with fish scales littering the ground. Even scooters would skid. This was Machhiwalon ka Bazar, the fish market whose stalls once crowded the road between Daryaganj and Jama Masjid. The market has long disappeared. A few decades ago, the fish business was shifted to Ghazipur, on Delhi’s eastern edge. Yet the colloquial name survives in conversation, part of muscle memory among Old Delhi wale. The road is now officially called Jama Masjid Road. The wider area, however, is known as Urdu Bazar, recalling the many Urdu bookstores that once lined the road. The name Machhiwalon ka Bazar survives

The Old Delhi encyclopedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Bharat Shocker, Cheena Shocker, New Star Shocker… Step into Gali Garhiya, and almost every signboard bears the word "Shocker." A trader explains that mechanics call a motorcycle shock absorber a shocker. The Old Delhi lane in Matia Mahal owes its name to garraya, a pit that once existed at the end of the street. This rainy afternoon, a grandfather, his son and his son’s son are sitting dry inside a shocker shop. The elder man offers chai, confirming the story about the street's name. He also says that the Walled City has two more streets with this name, in Kucha Chelan and Chitla Gate. As you walk deeper into the cramped lane, it

The Old Delhi encyclopedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The lanes pause at Gadhe Walon ka Chowk. One lane runs towards Chitli Qabar. Another slips beneath Turkman Gate and out of the Walled City. A third heads towards Chawri Bazar. The fourth goes to Teliyon ka Phatak, making this a proper chowk. Overhead, a huge banyan tree leans from one building to another. Its thick branches thread through a maze of cables. Beneath the tree stand Shahji Doodh Bhandar, Bismillah Bakery and Standard Chicken Point. Around them crowd meat shops, stationery stores and photocopy kiosks. Scooters squeeze past battery rickshaws. Men on motorcycles stare at their at their screens. Citizen Moinuddin, who runs a tea stall here, says the name Gadhe Walon

City from above. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Pigeons occupy the bronze statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, plus the adjacent traffic lights, and every ledge that can hold a bird. The flyover begins near this statue at Barakhamba, from which it takes its name. Most Delhiwale experience the Central Delhi flyover through a windshield. That is a mistake. It is best experienced on foot. And this infrastructural utility is truly uncommon, for It links New Delhi to Old Delhi. The walk takes barely half an hour. Yet the city changes steadily under your feet. Traffic here never stops. Cars, motorcycles and auto rickshaws stream past. Mixed among them are handcarts loaded with pipes, rods and sacks of cement. This humid evening, an

The Walled City encyclopaedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Plaster peels from the walls, old brick shows through, and one white door is decorated with painted flowers. Gali Master Shiv Prasad lies discreetly in Turkman Gate Bazar, sandwiched between the modest establishments of Jawed Lassiwala and Muhammad Doodhwala. The lane is so narrow that it stays dark even at noon. At its dead end, where the lane opens into a small square and the afternoon daylight finally enters, a young man steps out of a doorway. This Old Delhi street was written about years ago. New info has since come to light, making another visit necessary. The young man is Umair, see photo. He is heading to his family's handicraft shop near

The Walled City encyclopaedia. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Old Delhi’s Farash Khana begins with two stories. Both try to explain how the street got its name. One account says the locality was settled by masons who laid the stone floors of the Red Fort. By this account, Farash is a corruption of farsh, the Urdu word for floor. But venerable Akhlaq Ahmad of RK Tailors, a Farash Khana establishment, offers an alternative account. According to him, the locality was home to men who carried ceremonial torches in the Red Fort. The torchbearer, he says, was called a farrash. So here we are, caught in a love triangle of two stories and one name. As for the second word in

The Walled City encyclopaedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The street is in constant motion this afternoon. Labourers are weaving through the cramped way bearing hefty parcels on their backs. Delivery boys hurry on, balancing glasses of chai on round rusting metal trays. A man in old-fashioned safari suit goes past carrying a stack of old-fashioned file folders. A few dogs are sitting motionless through the commotion, looking carefree. Kucha Dayaram is one of the many narrow lanes branching off the choked spine of Chawri Bazar. Shops spill onto the lane. Their signboards advertise hardware, aluminium, sanitary goods, GI strips, springs, and display fittings. None offers a clue about the Dayaram of Kucha Dayaram. Though one signboard gives the street's name