The Walled City encyclopaedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Once upon a time there lived a lady in Old Delhi. She remains a mystery. Since this happened a long time ago, no one can tell anything about what kind of a person she was. Nevertheless, a barely known Walled City street is named after the said lady. Gali Mirza Suraiya Jaan is a dead-end street. A very small one at that. The etymologists among us might be tempted to imagine Mirza Suraiya Jaan as a stylish elegant woman wearing lots of chooriyan, or bangles. That is because Gali Mirza Suraiya Jaan is one of the many sub-streets of a much larger street that goes by the name of Gali Choori Walan,

The Walled City encyclopaedia. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some 400 years ago, Shahjahan founded the Walled City of Shahjahanabad, today known as Old Delhi. Waiting for the completion of his Red Fort, the Mughal Emperor meantime built a palatial mahal out of earth as his temporary residence. The palace was called Matia Mahal—matia being derived from Hindustani word mitti for earth/mud. Today, the palace is nowhere to be seen, but the site on which it stood continues to be known as Matia Mahal. If you recall, dear reader, a version of these words appeared on this space a few weeks ago, as part of The Delhi Walla's “This way to” series, aimed at creating a definitive encyclopaedia of every Old

The Walled City dictionary. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Despite the sunny noon, the tiny grocery is submerged in semi-darkness. Musty and cold, it is the only grocery in Katra Bala Mal. The quiet Old Delhi neighbourhood, close to Chawri Bazar, is a hotchpotch of beautiful but derelict doorways and cobwebby windows. Every building here appears to have been standing on its assigned space for hundreds of years. Same is the impression exuded by this grocery. The grocery in fact used to be a telephone booth—“STD,” says the seated gent in blue sweater. The elderly Jai Shankar gazes out from behind the shop counter, discoursing in a slow melodious tone of voice on life’s unexpected patterns. “My grandfather was a clerk

The Walled City dictionary. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Look at these brown cardboard cartons, and then look at that brown wooden doorway. The juxtaposition defines the jarring character of Old Delhi’s Charkhe Walan Chowk intersection. Tidy relic of the past commingling with the industrious present. The cartons contain bottles of soap dispensers, says one of the five friendly men sitting around the cartons. They work as labourers, and live jointly like a band of brothers in a nearby alley. One man, with a summertime gamcha slung along his shoulder, is seated at some distance away from the rest of his colleagues, his back leaning against the beautiful doorway. He explains that the cartons arrived a while ago in a van,

The Walled City dictionary. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Old Delhi’s Gali Choori Wallan no longer has any choori shop, or choori worker. So why should you today expect Old Delhi’s Gali Lohe Wali to have anything to do with loha, or iron? In fact, the lane near Chawri Bazar exposes an altogether different character than you would expect from its name. It is lined with stores selling… wedding cards! This afternoon, as the weak November sunshine tries to penetrate through the winter smog, the street walls deepen the grim mood with their dust-covered smears of peeling paint. A rotting genda garland is strung around a wall flyer advertising the services of a “shutter repairer.” A kati patang is stuck behind

The Walled City dictionary. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] See the small tiled platform at the centre of the chowk. A few flowers are scattered about it. Now, a citizen steps out from one of the lanes intersecting at the crossroad. He walks up to the platform, and bends down, reverently laying his right palm on the platform. He brings the palm to his forehead, as if partaking something of the platform’s divinity. “Mata ki Chowki,” he explains, turning towards Chawri Bazar. Old Delhi’s Chaurasi Ghanta Chowk however is not named after this platform, but after another sacred destination. That place is a full-fledged temple under a peepal tree, and stands steps away from the platform, across the lane from Banarasi Das

The Walled City dictionary. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] There is no jamun in Gali Jamun Wali. The historical fact is that a jamun tree did stand there, and it did give its name to the street. While the tree ceased to exist a long time ago, it has not wholly become a part of unverifiable legend. A street dweller has been a rare witness to the tree. “That jamun ka ped was there in my childhood, I would see it daily,” insists Muhammed Sayeed. In his late 60s, the hospitable man administers an envelope-making workshop in the street. This evening, he is sitting on a chair right outside the workshop with his friend, journalist Fasiullah. Both men are dressed in

The Walled City dictionary. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It was a poet’s alley. Or maybe it was a fish market. Perhaps it was both. Old Delhi’s Gali Khan Khana has a past full of conjectures. Khan Khana, of course, was the title that Emperor Akbar famously awarded to his court noble Rahim, the legendary poet well-versed in Sanskrit, as well as Persian. Indeed, one recent afternoon, a Walled City man encountered in front of the Jama Masjid had introduced himself as a poet who lived in a nearby street, which he said with some flourish, was named after a great poet. He had meant Gali Khan Khana. But Gali Khan Khana could as well have been named after any VIP. For