North By Northeast

Tucked Away In A Corner Of South Delhi, Humayunpur Is The City’s Favourite Go-To Place To Savour Delicacies From The Northeastern Parts Of India. Sharmistha Chaudhuri Explores This Culinary Gem

- Sharmistha Chaudhuri

I’ve crossed the National Cadet Corps (NCC) sign thousands of times. A big blue sign on the right on the way towards Africa Avenue from Green Park. I can’t miss it. What I’d failed to see many a time—rather ignored—was the other sign close to it pointing towards Humayunpur. As a teenager who’d visit Delhi from Kolkata to spend most of her time at the RK Khanna Tennis Stadium close by, our hub for post-match gatherings used to be Green Park Market for an occasional treat at McDonalds (back then, still a novelty). Then we’d walk back, most probably cut through Humayunpur, to reach our modest accommodation for a night’s sleep, before starting the next day’s cycle.

Even after a quasi-permanent move to the capital close to seven years ago, Green Park remained a nostalgic haunt as I passed by the Humayunpur sign every time I visited. It was about four years ago after a close friend moved to the city from back home that, over mugs of coffee, we were reminiscing how we missed our favourite pocket-friendly eating places. An excited phone call next week fired the soul as she mentioned three magic phrases—delicious food, Humayunpur village, pocket-friendly. The dots connected in my head and finally, I took the right turn that had beckoned for years.