Delhi: Sadar Bazar

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Food historian Pushpesh Pant says Delhi had a culture of chaats, kulcha and mutter. “Chhola bhatura came in with the refugees during Partition and soon replaced kulcha and mutter from the scene.“
 
Food historian Pushpesh Pant says Delhi had a culture of chaats, kulcha and mutter. “Chhola bhatura came in with the refugees during Partition and soon replaced kulcha and mutter from the scene.“
  
=Shahpur Jat=
 
[http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=BUY-Lanes-A-village-sets-trend-with-style-22082015004027 ''The Times of India''], Aug 22 2015
 
  
Dharvi Vaid
 
  
''' A village sets trend with style potpourri '''
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[[Category:India|D
 
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DELHI: SADAR BAZAR]]
Shahpur Jat, an urban village, has a swagger all its own. This stylish retail hub in south Delhi prides itself on its rural atmosphere that only accentuates the cutting edge fashion that it offers to discerning customers
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[[Category:Places|D
 
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DELHI: SADAR BAZAR]]
Colourful and quirky Shah pur Jat is anachronistic --in reverse. Its dirt lanes are boisterous and redo lent of rural India and yet this village in south Delhi has some of the most modern de signer ware on sale. Abutting the ruins of Alauddin Khilji's medieval Siri Fort Shahpur Jat once used to be an affordable production hub for rookie fashion designers. Today, it has transformed into a popular high-fashion retail area that melds the traditional with the modern.
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In the heart of the urban village is Jungi House, whose narrow lanes colourfully announce the presence of niche designer labels such as Liz Paul, Rahul and Anushka, Preeti Mohan, Bhumika Grover, Monika and Nidhi, Akshay Wadhwa and Rajat Suri. The wedding season can be a riot here, with lehangas, anarkalis and saris that have newness and flamboyance woven into them. And if it's a foreign look they are contemplating, there are stores like House of Blondie and Les Parisiennes to fulfil their fantasy. Men too can try out the array of fine wedding apparel here, from formals to innovative Indo-Western numbers whose prices can go up to Rs 50,000.
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However, it is not only for wedding outfits that the style seekers congregate at this village. Designer Liz Paul says customers come hunting for traditional party wear too. “The best thing about Shahpur Jat is that in a single place you can get everything, and because most of the things on sale are designer pieces, they are unique too,“ she says.
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An example of unique is the m e n swe a r at UNIT by Rajat Suri. The de signer has bor rowed the me tallic patterns that have been in vogue in women's fashion for some time and incorporated them rather boldly on solemn blazers and Nehru jackets. “Designers here excel in making boring office wear look stylish,“ quips Suri.
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And then there are the jewellery shops. The bling in the showcases blend the old and the new, the tribal and the avant garde. No wonder, the chand balis and jhumkis, the kundan and the polki here are statements in themselves. What is more, if you want any particular piece customized, the stores are more than willing to ensure the glitter is uniquely yours.
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“At Preeti Mohan's store you can even get your old watch customized into a beautiful ornament with gems of your liking,“ says Kanika Behl, who regularly shops at Shahpur Jat.“Whether you wear it with a maxi dress or an understated sari, it fits in as an exemplar of style.“ Walk around, and you will also find kitschy de signs incorporated into bedsheets, lampshades, cushion covers and wall hangings.
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There is a tangible swagger about the place, perhaps because it is popular among budding designers who are just beginning to experiment with their labels. “Earlier designers only had small fabrication centres here,“ says Gau rav Jagtiani, who has had a produc tion unit in the village for seven years now, “but new designers have set up their retail stores here and are expanding the market.“
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The restaurants in the village have joined in the fun with Bohe mian inspiration. “It is a place that is welcoming of all,“ says Sumit Singh, who opened Cafe Red with three other friends, all bankers. “We wanted a place where working people like us could just lounge and relax over a cup of coffee. Shahpur Jat topped our list because it has a very relaxing ambience.“ Like Cafe Red, there are many other theme restaurants that offer cuisines from India and across the world.
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“The architecture and the gallies here give you the flavour of rural India,“ points out Jagtiani. “These elements are interpreted by the designers in their work.“ And that is what makes Shahpur Jat a village out of time.
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=Shalimar Bagh=
 
=Shalimar Bagh=

Revision as of 18:50, 6 September 2022

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.
Additional information may please be sent as messages to the Facebook
community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully
acknowledged in your name.

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.
Additional information may please be sent as messages to the Facebook
community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully
acknowledged in your name.


Contents

Qaumi School/ Shahi Eidgah

Mohammad Ibrar, Working under tin roof for 42 yrs, Urdu school risks losing even that, February 27, 2018: The Times of India


The 17th-century Shahi Eidgah in Old Delhi’s Sadar Bazaar is often crowded — not with supplicants assembling for prayers, but with children who turn up daily to study in a school at one corner of the paved ground.

Functioning under battered asbestos roofs and haphazardly assembled rickety furniture, the Qaumi Senior Secondary School has provided for thousands of students in its 42 years at the Eidgah. The only governmentaided Urdu-medium school in the vicinity, it caters to residents of Qasabpura, Quresh Nagar, Bada Hindu Rao and adjoining areas.

The school once functioned from a bustling four-storeyed building, which was razed during the Emergency in 1976. Having weathered all sorts of storms over the years, its existence is now under the threat as the Delhi government is looking to dismantle it and accommodate its students and teachers elsewhere.

Mohammad Shareef (13), son of a daily wager, is a regular to the school. He says: “Though it’s not like any other school, they teach us better here.” Shareef lives near the school, and that’s one of the reasons why his father prefers it. According to Ehsan Ali, a teacher at the school, the biggest challenge the children face here is “the attack of the weather”. He says: “During summer, the asbestos turns the classrooms into furnaces. During winter, it’s too cold without the walls.” Nonetheless, Ali has been associated with the school for 18 years.

Activist Firoz Ahmed Bakht recently filed a petition in Delhi High Court, demanding that the government construct a new building, “as promised when the government of 1976 had levelled the ground where it once stood”. In his PIL filed through advocate Atyab Siddiqui, Bakht contended that children from the “downtrodden and backward classes have to suffer due to threats of closure, makeshift classrooms, leaking roofs and no proper facilities”.

HC is looking into the issue and has asked AAP government and other agencies to explore the possibility of allotting land for the minority school. The matter will come up for hearing again on Tuesday.

While the counsel for the government had assured the court of the keenness to resolve the issue, Bakht isn’t so sure. He argues that as per the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, it is now obligatory for the state to provide land and building for neighbourhood schools. “The government is trying to merge the Urdu-medium school by distributing the students to other schools in the adjoining areas,” he says.

He alleges that on January 17, the Directorate of Education sent a mail to the school principal, Mohabbat Ali, asking him for details of students and employees “to distribute them to other schools”. Ali says such a plan will be disastrous for students. “We have more than 700 students who have been studying here for years now. If allowed and supported, we can modify the existing place and improve it. To send students of an Urdumedium school to that of any other medium will affect their education,” he says.

Siddiqui says the government has maintained that it doesn’t have the land to relocate the school. Even DDA and Delhi Waqf have claimed “sympathies with the students”, but said they have no land. “The only hope for us is HC’s intervention,” Siddiqui says. Bakht believes that if the government shows intent, it can get land from an adjoining park, which “has become a hotbed for nefarious activities and is a favourite haunt of drug-peddlers.”

Nand Di Hatti

Picture courtesy: The Times of India, Sep 12 2015

The Times of India, Sep 12 2015

Sujith Nair  Nand Di Hatti has been drawing generations of Delhiites with lip-smacking chhola-bhaturas

Chhola bhatura -the sight and smell of this sinfully flavour some combination can kill any diet plan. Nand Di Hatti, nestled in the milling lanes of Old Delhi's Sadar Bazaar, is among the best places for a plateful of this spicy delight.This eatery has been drawing generations of Delhiites with its fluffy bhaturas and spiced chickpeas.

The shop's secondgeneration owner, 71-year-old Om Prakash, says his father, Nand Lal Makkar, initially sold meetha kulcha and chhola for six annas from a pushcart in Sadar Bazaar. He had moved to Delhi along with his family from Rawalpindi during Partition.

Nand Lal set up the shop in mid-70s and started serving bhaturas instead because Karol Bagh's Bhasin Bakers which supplied meetha kulcha stopped production -it no longer had wo rk e r s s k i l l e d enough to undertake the baking process. “Red in colour, the meetha kulcha is bigger and three times costlier than the normal one,“ says Gajendra Bhasin, the current owner of Bhasin Bakers. His grandfather sold meetha kulcha in Rawalpindi and after Partition set up shop in Karol Bagh.

In the early 90s, Nand Lal's shop was split between his two sons. Om Prakash, the second son, now runs Nand Di Hatti along with his sons, while his nephew, Bharat, 44, sits in the second shop called Nand Bhature Wale Di Hatti.

Made in desi ghee without onion, Nand Lal's chhola bhaturas are served with aloo, chillies and mango pickle.Bharat's day starts at 3am when he starts cooking chana in his kitchen, which he shares with his cous h he shares with his cous ins. The chana, which is not soaked as is the nor m, is cooked with spices over low fire for five hours. Slow cooking, Bharat says, ensures that the chickpea's skin stays intact. Anubhav Sapra, who conducts food walks in the city, says his parents maintain that Nand's chhola bhatura has remained consistently delicious over the last 30 years. “Nand mixes sooji with maida while making the bhaturas. This keeps them light on the tummy,“ says Sapra. Bharat says he tried setting up similar shops in West Dehli's Hari Nagar and Ramesh Nagar, but had to fold up within six months. Om Prakash, too, had to wind up his second outlet in Paharganj within a year.

Both shops also sell chana masala in packets for patrons who want to replicate the magic. Mahesh Khanna, 70, the second-generation owner of Khanna Stationery Mart in Sadar Bazaar, remembers eating Nand's chhola and meetha kulcha in the early 60s. “They used to sell it for 50 paise. Now it costs Rs 90,“ he says.

Food historian Pushpesh Pant says Delhi had a culture of chaats, kulcha and mutter. “Chhola bhatura came in with the refugees during Partition and soon replaced kulcha and mutter from the scene.“

Shalimar Bagh

Sheesh Mahal

Sheesh Mahal
Sheesh Mahal

The Times of India 2013/07/04

Sunderwala Mahal. Photo courtesy: Aga Khan Trust. This is a monument in the Nizamuddin area of south-east Delhi.

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