Delhiwale: This way to Gali Salim Mohd Shah

As part of our ‘Walled City dictionary’ series, that is chronicling every significant Old Delhi place.

They are popping out of the green leaves like soap bubbles. Then they spread into the warm dusty air, quickly vanishing (like soap bubbles). Moments later, they are again sighted, as they return to the leaves.

These are sparrows. The birds reside amid the cooling darkness of a gigantic hanging garden of malti vines.

This must be among the very few places in Old Delhi where you may spot Delhi’s state bird, whose sightings have grown less common over the years. Indeed, the rare spectacle rescues Gali Salim Mohd Shah from ordinariness. Otherwise it has a severely minuscule scope. Some may simply dismiss the gali as a forgettable side-alley of Kucha Chelan’s Main Road.

The lane terminates into a gate that looks statelier than the neighbouring doorways. The malti vines in fact screen the tall facade of the residence within the gate. This afternoon, watching the sparrows fills the mind with peace, causing the chaos and noise of the Walled City to dissipate. One feels a sense of gratitude to the family living in the elegant house. They clearly care for these cascading vines, and perhaps also for the vines’s winged dwellers. The master of the house is a retired geologist, known in the street as Nawab Sahib. He is said to have a room filled with books, along with stacks of old National Geographics.

Meanwhile, the street remains surprisingly empty for a long time. Finally, a man in crumpled kurta-pajamas enters. He cranes his neck upwards to gaze at the sparrows, looks unimpressed, and talks favourably of a “kabutarbaaz,” living some streets away, who keeps “hundreds of pigeons on his roof.” The man casually remarks that the gali must have gotten its name from some long-gone figure.

Soon after, a little boy appears, tightly clutching a packet of Chachi 420 aloo chips. He runs towards Nawab Sahib’s house, but as he’s about to crash into the gate, he turns left, and vanishes somewhere into the side-wall. (On coming closer, one can notice a narrow doorway, with a staircase going up to a warren of homes.)

Now a woman in black appears. She walks straight to Nawab Sahib’s gate, crying out: “Anybody here, bhayya? Please give something to the old woman, be blessed with jaan-maal.” The indifferent sparrows continue their cyclic commute.