It is five in the morning. Most shutters are down, but Ansar Store is aglow in the pre-dawn darkness—see photo. This is Old Delhi’s Gali Madrasa Hussain Baksh, a dead-end street opening into Matia Mahal Bazar.
The grocery stays open all night, says the young man at the counter.
As for the chai stall, it has been standing at the mouth of the street since the time Chacha founded it in 1992. He would sit every day beside the coffee machine, sometimes with his long white beard tied with a band. Rings covered his fingers. He would converse with a politeness that made one stay at his stall long after the cup of chai was finished. Opposite the tea stall, at the gali’s mouth, is another noteworthy landmark. Bhai Pappe’s shop used to be crammed with Hindi film music cassettes. He began selling them after an electric shock made him give up his work as an electrician. He would buy cassettes from stalls outside the Red Fort. Those cassette stalls have long disappeared. In recent years, almost nobody would buy Bhai Pappe’s cassettes either. He eventually gave up selling music. He now runs a television dish antenna business, but rarely comes to the shop. A customer’s faulty antenna brings him back.
