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Explore Delhi
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| The fertile plains of Uttar Pradesh offered an ideal habitat for the early Muslim settlers who came in the wake of the establishment of Turkish rule in India. The hostility was confined mainly within the ruling classes - The Rajas, Rawats, Rais and the original village echelons and the muqtis and their subordinates. Muslim concentration in towns was primarily due to their socio-political organizations, their exclusive racial and religious complexion. Muslims have always had an influential upper class consisting of Nawabs, Rajas and Chaudhries because of their historical antecedents.The middle class, comparatively thin among Muslims, is engaged in the traditional trades like leather. Commerce and trade was not a Muslim forte. Muslims have overwhelmingly large lower class, appallingly poor, ignorant, conservative and hide-bound. It consists of artisans, petty traders, weavers, carpet makers, labourers, butchers, kite-makers, vegetable-settlers and the like. |
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▪ Chor Bazaar |
| A Curious bazaar behind the old ramparts of the Red Fort, which comes to life on Sundays to trade a mix of "secondhand" and allegedly stolen goods. |
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▪ Kinari Bazaar |
| A colourful street set behind the gurudwara on Chandni Chowk, and connected to the main road by Dariba Kalan, "the street of incomparable peal", which is the centre for jewellers. The shops in Kinari Bazaar overflow with bright wedding finery, including garlands made of rupee notes, grooms' turbans, rosettes and glistening tinsel used by Hindus, Christians and Muslims in vivid and noisy marriage ceremonies. In October (the month of Ram Lila) the shops stock props for the annual theatre productions-bows and arrows, cardboard swords and fake heads for the evil nine-headed King Ravana. |
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▪ Naya Bazaar |
| Spice market on khari Baoli, near Fatehpuri Masjid, clouded with the fine dust of flour and spices and dried fruits sold here are said to be the best in Delhi, and many are sold to be the best in Delhi, and many are sold to wholesales by the sack; weighed-down porters load their burdens onto ox carts which trundle off to mass of motorized traffic. |
| The covered Gadodia Market, just off Khari Baoli, is a gathering place for wholesalers who weigh their goods on huge old-fashioned scales. Among the spices and condiments you can find aniseed, turmeric, pomegranate, dried mangoes, ginger, saffron, reetha nuts (used for washing hair and cleaning silver), lotus seeds, pickles, sugars, chutneys and edible leaves of silver paper used to coat sweets and cakes. |
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▪ Meena Baazar |
| A distinctively islamic bazaar of cramped shops clustered around the base of the Jami Masjid, full of clothes, domestic implements and smells not found in Hindu regions of the city. Here you can buy burquas, dupattas, topis, caged chickens, bangles, kebabs, sticky sweetmeats and devotional pictures for shrines. |
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▪ Car Parts Bazaar |
| South of the Jami Masjid, the stalls that make up this bazaar stock, or rather pile high, new and secondhand automobile parts from all models, rnging from speedometers and the all-important horn to complete engines. |
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▪ Chawri Bazaar |
| Named After the Marathi word Chawri (meeting place), this street, running west from the Jami Masjid, was once flanked by the huge mansions which were destroyed by the British after the Murthy. In the nineteenth century it was famous for its "dancing girls", who looked into the streets below from arched windows and balconies; they were moved out by the Delhi Municipal Corporation in the twentieth century. Today the shops specialize in copper and brass Buddhas, Vishnus, Krishnas, belis, lamps, ashtrays, masks and boxes. |
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▪ Nai Sarak |
| The long road, Nai Sarak, which connects Chawri Bazaar with Chandni Chowk, is lined with nineteenth- and twentieth-century building whose lower storeys are used for making and selling paper, and houses shops stocking educational books and stationery. |
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▪ Kalan Mahal |
| A small market street further south of the Jami Kalan Mahal is the gathering place for brass polishers, and also has stalls displaying intricately carved bone necklaces. |
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▪ Polutry and Fish Markets |
| East of Kalan Mahal the air is filled with the unmistakable smell of fish. Pilled high on lorries and stored in barrels of ice, transported between cramped stalls on the heads of porters, every imaginable kind of fish is traded here before finding its way onto plates all over the city. In between fish stalls, chickens lie cramped in stacked cages before being slaughtered and plucked. |
