Society

Learn It By Haat

Apart from its inimitable allure, Dilli Haat also offered an entirely new retail model

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Learn It By Haat
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One of the restaurants that offer state-specific specialities

Among the 10,000 people it lures through its gates daily are families, cooing couples, as well as its most passionate (and passionately welcomed) devotees—expats and tourists. It's not all fruitless either: The Haat drums up Rs 2.5 crore worth of business every month. And though craftspersons have to pay a Rs 400 rent per day, they're clearly more than making up for it: they clamour for return visits, devise ways of sneaking past the once-in-six-months rule, and say there's no better place to sell their wares. Then there are additional advantages, besides the great sales. The convivial, pluralistic atmosphere means that a lady selling handloom sarees from Andhra Pradesh can chat up the folk from West Bengal selling kantha sarees in the neighbouring stall and get new ideas to diversify her own craft. Furthermore, artisans get to interact directly with buyers, without middlemen whittling away chunks of their earnings.

So it's unsurprising that mall-owners want a piece of Dilli Haat too. "One developer came to ask how he could convert a whole floor in a mall to a Dilli Haat," says Jaitly. "It's great to see the Haat enter the urban lexicon, and that people are recognising the retail possibilities of the non-standardised, non-branded, visually different products that the crafts sector has to offer." And the sunny, picturesquely red-brick Haat, where they're sold, certainly makes you rethink setting foot ever again in Gurgaon's glassy mausoleums, with their dull, overpriced wares.

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