This way to Mohalla Niyaryan, part 2

The Old Delhi encyclopaedia

- Mayank Austen Soofi

The narrow street is splintered into narrower cul-de-sacs. One ends into a wall. The wall has a door. The door opens into a vestibule. The vestibule opens into a courtyard, showing rooms beyond.

This particular residence isn't real. It exists in Ahmad Ali's Twilight in Delhi. The novel is set in Mohalla Niyaryan, which is real. This Old Delhi street lies behind GB Road's red light district, crammed with houses, chai khanas, roti bakeries, and very many stalls of all kinds.

One of these stalls specialises in repairing mobile phones. The proprietor, the justly named Asif Mobile Wale, is a dweller of this very street, but he had never before heard of the novel that put his gali on the pedestal of world-class literary fiction.