Little remains of the Khan Market I knewfrom my school and college days in the ’60s, except that then, as now, it wasSouth Delhi’s prime promenade—you went there not just to shop but to see andbe seen, to rendezvous with friends, in the happy certitude that you were boundto run into at least one old friend you hadn’t seen in a while.
It’s an interesting exercise to try and recall what was NOT available in KhanMarket in the ’60s—there were no readymade women’s clothes, no breadexcept sliced white, no sneakers except smelly white or brown canvas keds, nocosmetics except talcum powder, kajal, and what was known as ‘vanishing’ or‘cold’ cream. You couldn’t buy a cup of coffee there—and you never saw aforeigner either (the diplomats shopped in CP).
There were never more than five or six cars in what is now the chaotic parkingarea, which is where we college students used to gather every evening, straightoff the University Special. First stop would be Sovereign Dairies, at one end ofKhan Market’s front row. Presided over by two ill-tempered brothers, it waswhere you went for Coca Cola and delicious black and white sweets calledBulls’ Eyes. You got a much warmer welcome next door at Empire Stores, whichstocked an amazing range of provisions—from ham to boxes of toilet paper (itcame in shiny rectangular sheets) to liquor. There’s a bank now where thiswonderful shop used to be. At the other end of the front row was anotherfavourite hang-out, Caryhom Ice Cre-am. If its owner was in a good mood, hewould say, "Wait 15 minutes and the pista ice cream will be ready." In fact,their pista ice cream was just plain vanilla with drops of green colouring, butin those pre- ‘21-flavours’ days we thought it was a rare treat.
In between these two shops were a couple of other mandatory stops—a pavementlending library for (forbidden) Mills and Boon romances, then on toBahri’s, where we’d perfected the art of reading whole books in 10-minutedaily installments while its owner, Mr Balraj Bahri, looked on indulgently (theother bookshop, Faqir Chand, didn’t encourage student browsers). Mr Bahriwasn’t always indulgent, though. My brother and I once pooled our money to buyJames Thurber’s Is Sex Necessary, a classic of quirky (thoughsqueaky-clean) American humour. Later that evening, Mr Bahri rang up my motherand said, "I want to warn you, your children are reading very unsuitablebooks." And that’s one of the few things about Khan Market that hasn’tchanged—Bahri Senior still presides over Bahrisons bookshop, and knows exactlywho’s reading what.
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This article originally appeared in Delhi City Limits, April 30, 2006
