This way to Esplanade Road

Esplanade is “a large open level area for walking.”

- Mayank Austen Soofi

The Old Delhi encyclopaedia

This is Oxford Dictionary’s definition, and Old Delhi’s Esplanade Road does possess such a trait. Though the wide road is so excessively crammed with street stalls that it is as cramped as a street. The dictionary further dissects the word as a “level space separating fort from the town.” Purani Dilli’s Esplanade Road is indeed close to the Red Fort. It spans out from Chandni Chowk, going all the way to Cotton Market, which stretches out to the great Jama Masjid, which overlooks the Walled City’s crowded galis and kuchas.

This afternoon, a man is lying flat under the shade of an Esplanade Road bargad; a tattered teddy bear is tied tightly to the tree trunk. “I am Devender. L used to work in the printing press. I'm now too old to work. I beg.”