Walking Through the Homes

Chandni Chowk is being usurped by a redevelopment model that will wipe out its unique blend of history, culture and commerce

- Avantika Mehta

ON a typical Sunday evening, with the weather having turned, Mohamed Khan* and his friends Raza Ahmed and Hamid Ansani* are perched on a single motorbike seat parked outside their apartment building. They are engrossed in an intense onscreen gunfight on Khan's prized possession-an Android phone. Their game is interrupted by a group of well-dressed visitors, led by a guide, walking in a single line.

The group is on the way to see the Hamdard factory, and passing through the narrow lane, they admire the naag (snake) motif covering the porch. "This is like the gargoyles in Europe," says one man. He's not wrong: snakes are used as motifs in India the same way gargoyles are in Europe: as a symbol of protection over their homes.

Khan does not know what a gargoyle is, and Europe is a distant dream for him.