If a city encapsulates the complex song of urban life, every bylane is a bustling rhythm in the background. Away from prying eyes, bylanes are democratic spaces of conviviality and familiarity. In the small shops and dhabas there, men and women worn out by the day’s mundane step out of their offices to drink tea, smoke cigarettes, share confidences and relish a few moments of life beyond livelihood.
The long and straight bylane behind the row of media houses on Bahadurshah Zafar Marg and adjacent to the walls of Jadid Qabristan Ahle Islam, the largest graveyard for Muslims in the city, was one such place.
The row of 50 illegal structures served as mini media offices, godowns, small eateries and tea shops. There was a barber shop and a cigarette stall as well; and a quiet cobbler, who worked with diligence and passion, till some time ago. It was a place of recreation for some, a workstation for others. It was a gender-friendly zone where the educated middle-class and the underclass crisscrossed and communicated, albeit superficially, with each other.
The tea shops drew the most customers. Rajendra had come from Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district back in the 1980s. The regulars trudged to his open-air shop even in Delhi’s searing summer. One of my enduring memories is sipping tea while sitting on a run-down sofa that his neighbour kabaadiwala had briefly put on show. Vehicles from nearby offices drove by. Rakesh specialised in bread omelettes and his own version of Maggi noodles with eggs. His shop had a small cement bench smoothened by people sitting over the years. Dinesh served excellent tea. His namakparas and pakoras enlivened evenings and conversations. Chowmein samosas, briefly introduced on his unwritten menu, was wildly popular among those with experimental palates. Janta Dhabha, which offered the best seating arrangement in the bylane, served low-cost lunch.
Old-timers would remember attempts to peddle fine dining stuff as well. About a decade and a half ago, a gentleman had started a small restaurant that served first-rate chicken korma. The chef claimed to have worked in the President’s kitchen. The restaurant perished in no time. So did Little India, which served crisp masala dosas and the finest filter coffee that Rs 30 could buy.
In the past two years, the tea shops and the eateries were hit hard by Covid. Office attendance had dropped. Business is down to 50%, the shopkeepers would say. On Wednesday, it got worse. Every outlet was reduced to rubble following a court ruling that they were illegal. Even what was once the trade union office of the Patriot newspaper, located behind Link House, is gone. On Thursday, there was nothing left but broken bricks, twisted metal sheets, and ragpickers. And a bachelor flock of befuddled roosters whose owner was nowhere to be seen.
When shops that were part of so many lives — livelihoods for some, for others a safe and friendly place for inexpensive social interaction — disappear in a day, it takes something away from us. What was once a part of our everyday experience is suddenly reduced to memory. We lose something that was so much a part of our lives that we didn’t even notice until it was gone. We feel an ache we cannot fully understand. Perhaps it is the sadness of becoming strangers in our own street.
Yet this pain is nothing compared to those who have lost their sole source of income. Some of them had been working there for over three decades. In whatever way possible, the government and the NGOs should lend them a helping hand.
