Heartbreak Haveli

Ballimaran, contrary to a minor urban legend, is not the quarter of cat-killers. It is where once lived the makers of ballis, or the long oars used by boatmen. Those boats and boatmen are long gone, as much else in old Delhi: the water channel that once ran through the bazaar, the shimmering pool and square built by Jahanara Begum that gave Chandni Chowk its name, the trams that clanged through the street till the 1960s.

- NAVTEJ SARNA

But still, on an early Sunday morning, an evanescent charm hangs over the now pedestrianised zone. Ballimaran is now the domain of shoe-sellers. There are cartloads of baby shoes, sackfuls of ladies’ sandals. Kachoris and pooris are being fried, and quickly sold, for breakfast. A man expertly chops papayas into sharp slices and serves them in newspaper strips. There is the thick smell of milk boiling in a huge kadhai, its surface a sea of pinpricks.