The market shops are shuttered, the main street is deserted, but the darkened corridors are filled with sleeping men. Some of the men are lying flat on mats unrolled along the floor, others are sprawled atop parked carts and rickshaws, their legs up due to lack of space.
These are hundreds of labourers who live and work in Old Delhi’s Chawri Bazar. The market’s name is thought by some to have originated from a Marathi word for “meeting place.” Certainly in the old times, young men from noble families would come here to meet the Chawri Bazar courtesans. At some point the courtesans moved elsewhere, and Chawri was transformed into a market for copper, brass and paper products—some paper merchants call it India’s biggest centre for wedding cards. Showrooms for bathroom fittings also exist in the bazar. Along with a few of Purani Dilli’s culinary destinations. (Ashok Chaat Corner’s electrical signage is blinking mutely into the night’s silence.)
As for the men asleep in the market corridors, almost all have their families back in the villages, where the wives and children depend on their men in Chawri for life’s material necessities. A substantial number of labourers happen to be daily wagers, others work for specific traders. These men together constitute the market’s living soul. Everyday, the area reawakens to life as soon as the labourers get up in the morning. The roadside chai stalls and the hajamat (shaving) stalls reopen to primarily cater to them. Even the street’s overhanging cables seem to serve these men, being weighed down by their shirts, pants and lungi.
As the market shops reopen for business, the labourers take over the bazar alleys, hauling the merchandise on carts, carrying shoppers on the rickshaws. The labourers also include a good number of freelance carpenters. They gather around the Chawri’s bustling chowk, waiting for assignments, sitting beside their many tools — vasula, chaursi, chaursa, jambori, inch-tape, guniya , cutter, khatkash, aari, hathori, chhaini and drill machine.
As the day progresses, the bazar becomes cacophonous. The lanes are jammed with people and vehicles. Sometimes it gets so crowded that it feels that the market shall stay choked until the end of time.
Post-lunch, many labourers huddle on their carts, chatting with each other over chai. While ikka-dukka shopkeepers, ensconced on office-style chairs, doze off under the garlanded portraits of their departed elders.
This being night, it is difficult to connect the area’s quietude to its daytime edition. Munshi, a labourer, is half-lying on his cart. He returned an hour ago from Jamia Hotel, his regular eatery for dinner. The cart doubling up as his bed, Munshi is doing what many of us do on the bed before falling asleep—browsing through mobile, see photo.
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