Dilli 6

While we are very aware that the market is 500 years old, with history etched into every corner, we really just went to buy silver jewellery. We walked down Dariba Kalan, the road famous for silver jewellery – one of the primary items being sold in this grand bazaar, since it started. We recommend Jaina & sons, right at the end of the lane – for its happy customer friendly owner and very reasonably priced products.

There is a ‘very old’ (the board says so) Jalebi and Samosa wala right at the beginning of the lane- you can smell and taste the ghee and believe the owner, when he tells you that his ancestors made samosas for Akbar! You should ignore the fact that Chandni Chowk was set up after his reign was over…

We didn’t enter the historic Central Baptist Church- one of the oldest in North India, just across the street. But we couldn’t not stop to pay homage to the 9^th sikh guru, Tegh Bahadur, who was beheaded for his beliefs, at what is now Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib. The ghee of the Kada Prasad acts as an excellent lip balm…

Natraj Bhalle Wala has been there since 1940. We have had better chaat elsewhere, but then, this place is pre-independence and we needed a picture.

Our team is full of angst-ridden melancholic poets. So we went to Mirza Ghalib’s haveli at Balli Maran. The museum was very quaint but the English translations on the walls almost made me a melancholic poet! Please only read the original verses.

We also ate Daulat ki Chaat ( which is very foamy milk froth) and enormous naans at Kake Di Hatti. Though our aim was to only look for silver, we found many more colours, shades and stories, on our trip down Dilli 6 lanes.