This was New Delhi 1. But for the past few years it’s looked more like GroundZero. Now the turrets of the Metro station peer out at the devastation like theconning towers of triumphant enemy submarines.
Well, I surrender. And I’m here to make my peace.
At 1 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon I’ve parked my car on the outer circleof L Block and checked into Nirula’s Hotel to spend 24 hours in CP. There isno plan. I will eat, drink, shop. I’ll meet some friends, maybe make some newones. I’ll visit old haunts and hopefully raise my spirits. At some pointI’ll take my first ride on the Metro. But mostly I will walk around—incircles.
I start with the southeastern quadrant: M, N, F and E blocks. Curving clockwisealong the rim opposite Super Bazaar, it strikes me—for the first time—thatthe colonnades of the outer circle (Connaught Circus) have twinned pillars whilethe Inner Circle (Connaught Place), as well as the radial roads, have individualcolumns. My cellphone rings, my mother wants to know where I am. "M Block inCP," I tell her, and she asks me to look out for Poornima Saris. "That’swhere my father bought me my first sari, in 1948," she says. "It was damnexpensive—75 rupees for just a small gold border. I still have it."
Poornima has left the building. But now my head is spinning with memories of myown rites of passage: My first football boots from Pioneer Sports. My firstspectacles, from Optical Corner. Platform shoes (Aieee! The ’70s!) fromBaluja’s. My first suit, from Vaish Bros. My first job, at India Today.My wedding ring, from Kanjimull’s. A first edition of The Naked and theDead, from Anand Book Stall. My first car, from Sikand & Co, and withinseconds, my first challan, from the Delhi Police. Oh, and hearing my first bombblast (there would be more). It went off right outside Nirula’s.
Yes, I’m that kind of Dilliwalla. I grew up in Bengali Market. CP wasthe heart of town for me. Ring Road the outer perimeter. ‘South Delhi’ meantDefence Colony. The markets of Southaxe or Geekayvun, on the horrid fringe,still reduce me to sociopathic hysteria. Take me to Gurgaon or Dwarka or Noidea,and I think I’m in some dystopian nightmare generated by The Matrix.
But CP is Zion. And I am Neo—Neo Palladian. Ah, but it’s not funny. The CP Iknew was dying, and of late I’ve come to believe, I want to believe, inthe resurrection. The metro has done its worst, Barakhamba is a road again,Marina Hotel will soon be a Radisson, two cinemas have been PVRed, newrestaurants and bars have opened and the ‘Great CP Sale’ is on. It must beworking, because my next call, just as I get back to the hotel, is fromNayantara, my suburban friend from Saket. She’s having lunch at United CoffeeHouse but she’s here to buy sweaters at the Jainson’s sale.
I catch up with her for a beer at UCH, the best-preserved of CP’s classicrestaurants. It’s reassuringly full and Jainson’s is similarly thronging.But after a swift raid on the Chinese woollens, Nayantara returns to herprovincial existence, and I resume my trail, walking anticlockwise now, andinevitably, further back in time, until, in the corridor of G Block, I reach thestuccoed signature of Spencer’s caterers. Freshly painted, it’s nowemblazoned meaninglessly above a Music World outlet, but I’m glad it’s stillthere. On C Block I stop at Delhi Stationery Mart, which still displays moreeminent signatures on letters of appointment as Official Stationers toPresidents Rajendra Prasad, Radhakrishan, and Zakir Hussain. D Block, andRamchander & Sons, sometime purveyors of toys to Me. The incongruous anddated modernism of Satish Gujral’s murals on the façade of Odeon Cinema. Onthe corner of B Block I peer into another delightful anomaly: the secludedcourtyard of Moti Masjid, whose Meccan alignment disrupts the geometry of thischalky Caucasian circle.
Oh yes, the goras. Lest we forget: CP was named after HRH Prince Arthur,Duke of Connaught, the third son of Queen Victoria and an Uncle of George V. Butit was first conceived by W.H. Nicholls, Chief Architect of The Imperial DelhiCommittee, in 1913. Inspired perhaps by the 18th-century Circus in Bath,Nicholls wanted a three-storey crescent surrounding an enormous plaza andopening directly onto a new railway terminus. But Nicholls left in 1917 and theproject was handed over to Robert Tor Russell, Chief Architect of the CPWD (whoalso designed the Eastern and Western Courts on Queensway or Janpath) and theCommander-in-Chief’s residence (Teenmurti House). When CP was completed in1939, the crescent had shrunk to two storeys and the railway station was shelved(the New Delhi Station in Pahar Ganj was rebuilt and expanded in 1956). ButNicholl’s ghost still stalks CP’s underworld. He must be chortling in hisgrave at the subterranean trains trundling into Rajiv Chowk Station.