Once there were flowers here, and trees.There were birds and dogs and squirrels. Grass and ants. Picnics and romance,cruising and sex. There were madmen, and touts dunning idiotic tourists.Maalishwalas and ear cleaners. In the centre there were subterranean ‘publicconveniences’, and above them an admittedly hideous fibreglass sculpture. Buton good days even that was obscured by the fountains. Once, you could lie downin Central Park and the entire city would spin around you.
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.
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Now curiosity gets the better of me and I take the plunge down the firstavailable ramp of stairs to the Metro. The shock of the New! My brain reboots toplot this gleaming catacomb onto my map of CP. At the end of the passage I cansee the trains sliding purposefully in and out as though they’ve always beenhere. A young woman trundles past me, having an angry conversation with hercellphone. "Shut up Neha! Bloody bitch!" It’s an unsettlinglycontemporary moment, instantly etched into my cache of Unclassifiable Memories.
I emerge to catch my breath at a reassuringly familiar institution: Wenger’spastry shop (estd. 1926, as soon as A Block was ready) and comfort myself withan English doughnut. And then, on the pavement just outside Wenger’s, I find avintage talisman. A Spirograph set. For 20 rupees I get six acrylic cogs, and myown mystic mandala of Connaught Place. Circles within circles, but in the righthands they can generate intricate, beautiful and infinite patterns.
It’s my favourite visual metaphor for this place, but having traced my firstcircuit of CP on foot and in memory, I’m faced with a messier reality. Perhapsit’s just the peculiar perspective of my generation, but it seems to me thatCP was most vibrant in the days of a mixed economy and the import substitutionchic of Jeans Junction, The Shop, The Cellar, Nirula’s Hot Shoppe and KhadiBhandar. I drop in to visit Satish Sundra of Ramchander & Sons and he givesme his own chronology of the cycles of boom and bust: "The best periodcommercially was up till 1965, then it was tough for 10 years, then good till1995. Then came globalisation, the metro and dishevelment." He confesses thatsix years ago he contemplated branching out to suburban malls but came awayconvinced that CP would rise again. "This is a heritage mall. The others arejust mushrooming like weeds in the grass," he says, mixing his metaphors indisgust.
Later, I call my friend R. Sriram, CEO of the Crossword bookstores to berate himfor failing to open a CP outlet. "We wanted to open in CP," he protests,"but the rates were astronomical, Rs 250 per square foot per month. In Gurgaonand Vaishali it’s Rs 50-70. CP only works for small, high-value boutiques notfor mass-market retailers."
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Under a staircase in C Block I find living proof of Sriram’s argument atAdarsh Typewriter Repair. It’s been here as long as I can remember and I’vewatched the proprietor age but never spoken to him before. He’s wary butgarrulous, and a little manic. Born into this business, he found himself facedwith obsolescence but clung to life repairing lighters, spectacles,telephones—anything with tiny springs and screws in it. Now his hopes arepinned on antique typewriter restoration. His shop is a warren, littered withdismantled machines. It’s no boutique, but it is small and he understands HighValue. There’s a battered Remington on his desk for which he wants six lakhs."Yeh to koi foreigner le jayega!" he says, and the cataract in hiseye glitters defiantly. I don’t know whether to laugh or applaud.
In the evening my wife joins me at Nirula’s, and along with three friends wehead off to Qba, the enormous bar and lounge that occupies two floors of EBlock. It’s depressingly empty for a Saturday night but we settle down on theterrace, above the Inner Circle. Out here, in the company of friends, theglimmer of candles, the noodling electronic music, a large shot of Jack Danielsand a cool breeze, the atmosphere is utterly intoxicating. With all the terracesin CP you have to wonder why no one has opened a place like this before. Noother city has a space quite like this grand circus. Unfortunately the pricesare frightening—at least if you’re picking up the tab for four thirsty womenintent on a long night. So we move on first to the utterly deserted Barcode onthe Outer Circle and then the slightly livelier Spirit, above Berco’s.Finally, we wind up at Blues, which is packed with a raucous young crowd. Thedrinks are cheap and the DJ is in thrall to an enthusiastic young dancer in aspaghetti top who directs his playlist—Ek gilasi, dus bahane… Myentourage gets up to dance but I’m drifting off again to nostalgic visions ofCP’s nightlife. I’ve remembered a recent conversation with Madhavi Mudgalwho was born and brought up in a flat on the Middle Circle, where her father hadestablished the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. "It was a lovely big flat with two aangans,"she told me. "All the great musicians stayed with us." Then she broke into abreathless reverential chant: "Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali KhanSahib, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan Sahib, Pandit Omkar Nath Thakur, Pandit Vinayak RaoPatwardhan, Gangubai Hangal, Hirobai Barodekar, Ustad Ahmad Jan Thirakawa…Oh, there were concerts through the night!"
The ladies return, flushed from their exertions, and in the drunken din weexchange fond smiles laden with unspoken memories. Three of us shared a flat inBrooklyn in the 1980s. We haven’t had this kind of ambulatory bar-hoppingnight out together since. But when we shuffle out after midnight, hoping to moveon to dinner, we realise that this is not New York. It isn’t even New Jersey.This is downtown New Delhi, and it’s turned back into a pumpkin. Not a snackin sight. Our friends depart for home-cooked meals while Malini and I try towheedle room service into rustling up some dinner. They do: toast.
So we spend our first night in a Delhi hotel room—a vast windowless chamber."Perfect for a couple, sir—very private!" In the morning we have breakfastat Potpourri and stroll down to Costa Coffee for a slightly more authenticcappuccino. We do finally ride the Metro and pop up in the labyrinth of ChawriBazaar. Riding back to CP I am caught up in the enthusiasm of the joyridingcitizenry. So maybe Central Park has turned into a theme park, but I’ll getover it.
When I reclaim my car, the parking attendant punches his hand-held register andthe bill pours out in an alarmingly long scroll. He tears it off and hands me acurling circle of paper: Rs 360! I start to argue but then I remember mygeometry and the pleasing circularity of the number disarms me. At least theNDMC knows how to turn a profit in CP. It’s a small price to pay for a happyending.
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This article originally appeared in Delhi City Limits, February 28,2006
