Delhiwale: This way to Gali Haveli Kallu Khawas
Gali Haveli Kallu Khawas in Old Delhi is an unassuming lane with historic charm, lively businesses, and a mix of old and new, ending in pink doorways.
As part of our ‘Walled City dictionary’ series, that is chronicling every significant Old Delhi place.
What to write about it? This is just a narrow lane remarkable only for looking too-too unremarkable. Its mouth at the bustling Chitli Qabar Bazar street is flanked by a bangle stall. Whatever, the gali seems short and dull, it must end some dozen steps ahead on reaching that facing wall.
The lane reaches the wall, but doesn’t end there. It veers to the left, goes straight, turns sharply to the right, goes straight, to the right again, straight, to the left, finally ending into a panel of partly pink doorways. Contradicting the first impression, the entire path turns out to be dense with many sights and many sounds.
Such is Gali Haveli Kallu Khawas. This overcast afternoon, an elderly gent in white kurta pajama is walking past a barber’s salon, a tailoring establishment, and a box-making workshop — these businesses are punctuated with very many houses. The man’s tap-tapping walking stick is making a thak-thak sound, which isn’t scaring the street’s bold goats.
The gali’s woody doorways are its most picturesque aspect—so weather-beaten that many are looking as soft as pillow. One doorway bears a board for “Blood Pressure check free, physiotherapy 50 rupees, sugar 20 rupees.”
The grandest and least weatherbeaten doorway belongs to Masjid Ek Minar. Emerging out of this mosque, Muhammed Mukhtar has something to say—“our gali takes its name from Kallu Khawas… nobody here remembers anything about him… Archaeological Survey of India might know shaayad (maybe).” The friendly man is more confident about Masjid Ek Minar—“It had a minar, but that minar had to be sacrificed 4-5 years ago to make way for more floors.”
A manufacturer of “brass weights,” Mukhtar’s “unit” is in distant Noida, obliging him to shuttle daily between this old world of the Walled City and the new world of Delhi-NCR.” He remarks that his street itself is a “nayi duniya” (new world) despite being in the historic quarter. “I’m in my fifties, I have been forever living in Kallu Khawas, and it is no longer how it used to be…. no multi-stories stood here when I was a child, and see now!”
He silently walks to the end of the long street, stopping in front of the aforementioned panel of partly pink doorways. “One of these doors goes up to my home,” he says, graciously agreeing to pose for the camera.