By Sidharth Mishra
Last week the local newspapers in the national Capital went into mourning over the closure of the three hundred year old sweet shop Ghantewala in the walled city area of Old Delhi. The owners of the sweetmeat shop claimed that running the ‘ancient’ business was not giving them the desired profits anymore and that they needed to diversify.
It is probable that the real estate value of the property must have been more than the accrued earnings they were earning from the sweet shop and the owners must have decided to go for a more profitable venture. This hardheaded thinking on the part of the owners probably hastened the process of closure. The newspapers were uniformly prosaic in their epitaph to the shop. They indulged in some nostalgia and recalled the “pure ghee” (clarified butter) dripping “Sohan Halwa”. However this romanticism does not negate the fact that the real estate value of the shop overshadowed the value of its products; thus speaking volumes about how this particular ‘halwa’ would not be missed.
In my three decades of residence in the national Capital, which I love as much as any ‘original’ Dilliwala would do, I have found two cultural misnomers. One the concept of a bucolic Dilli Dehat and two the culture of Purani Dilli. First Dilli Dehat.
While carving out the territory of Delhi, the British must have had it in mind to create an outer tier to the city they were building as their ‘Jewel in the Crown’. Before them there is no evidence of the rulers of Delhi having administered the areas beyond their fort cities.
Rather the occupants of these areas could never be tamed and were cause of much misery to those visiting the Capital. Several gangs of robbers existed in these areas, which thrived on imposing their own duties and taxes on the trade caravans arriving and leaving the bazars of the fort city. These areas were culturally closer to the contiguous districts of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana rather than the romanticised ‘tehzeeb’ of the walled city.
These areas in the outskirts were given a distinct political identity in the post-Independence period by Congress leader Chowdhary Brahm Prakash. He was probably the only Congress leader of note in that period before Punjabi refugees came to dominate city’s politics, who did not belong to the Old City. To counter the old city politicians, Prakash created the idea of the Delhi Dehat and exploited it to the hilt for many years. After him, Saheb Singh Verma in the BJP and Sajjan Kumar in the Congress rose to inherit Brahm Prakash’s constituency. The erstwhile Outer Delhi Parliament seat had 21 assembly segments forming a semi circular arch starting from Narela in North West to Badarpur in South East.
In stark contrast was the Chandni Chowk Parliament seat of pre-2009 delimitation era. It had just five seats – Chandni Chowk, Matia Mahal, Paharaganj, Ballimaran and Sadar Bazar, all located in a close periphery. The powerful leaders from these two areas strongly espoused their political cause attributing extra-ordinary cultural qualities to their geographical segments. They remained successful at it despite Delhi growing by leaps and bounds both geographically and culturally.
Delhi started to expand outwards from the walled city and in the last 68 years it has grown beyond
the geographical boundaries of the NCT (National Capital Territory) to the NCR (National Capital Region) carved out from the neighbouring states. This expansion has completely subsumed exclusivity, if there existed any, of Delhi’s culture.
Examined both historically and archaeologically, Delhi over the centuries never inherited a homogeneous culture. Each of the dynasties which ruled over Delhi built their own gated fort city, left a mark of their own distinct architectural style and according to the available literature their own cultural mosaic. Even in the case of Mughals, what we see of Delhi during the time of its builder Shahjahan was markedly different from what we witness during the reign of the last Mughal-Bahadur Shah Zafar.
Recent trends in historical studies indicate that in the 19th century Delhi had evolved a hybrid culture drawing from the Europeans and Mughal traditions. The hybrid culture of Delhi prospered each time that there was a fresh inflow of migrants to the city, especially post-Partition when Punjabi Hindus came in large numbers and Urdu-speaking Muslim populace left in hordes. There is every chance that the recipe of ‘Sohan Halwa’ from Ghantewala had been imported from Punjab or Sindh. Incidentally, Chainaram, the Sindh confectionary in Fatehpuri area continues to do brisk business.
The other hybrid food of Delhi I can recall of is Chole Bhature. Pre-partition Delhi had the tradition of street food vendors serving a sumptuous early morning breakfast of stuffed deep fried puri (called Bedmi) with potato curry. This came to be replaced with Bhature: puris made from yeast-based flour, and Pindi Channa, which of course was a Punjabi import.
It’s difficult to recall of any food which is distinct to Delhi. Purani Dilli Ki Chat too has a subliminal influence of Avadh (Lucknow). Bedmi Puri is as popular in Rajasthan and Haryana and Western UP. Where Purani Dilli excelled was in creating a bouquet of food delicacies and recipes imported from the neighbouring regions. In fact it went with the trading nature of Dilli, which was and still is the biggest wholesale market of North India.
Purani Dilli had flavour of all those who visited it and many who made it to be their home. Therefore if in the walled city we have the ‘havelis’ of Chandni Chowk, we also have the European architecture in the Skinner Estate in Kashmere Gate. The unscrupulous builders with equally unscrupulous civic and police officials are now giving a new shape to Purani Dilli, which may soon metamorphosize into a shapeless wonder.
(The author is Consulting Editor, Millennium Post)
