The brothers have been among eight siblings. Father Muhammed Mirza became a desi ghee trader, and mother Malika Mahal Nigar administered the residence.
The Delhi Metro’s Yellow Line connects historic Old Delhi to historic (and a long way older) Mehrauli. Long in the past, horse-pushed tongas automatically rattled between those foreign places. A tradition some of the residents of Walled City became to board a Mehrauli-bound tonga for day-long picnics.
Such outings solely spread out inside the monsoon season, have a look at the Mirza brothers. In their 50s, Saeed (left) and Fareed are sitting of their building-material shop that overlooks a madly chaotic Walled City avenue. They exploit the east-going night hour to summon the tonga tours of their early life.
The brothers were among eight siblings. Father Muhammed Mirza become a desi ghee trader, and mother Malika Mahal Nigar administered the residence. “In the wet season, the sighting of a clean sky helped choose the day while we may want to visit Mehrauli… that is what Dehli ke log would do,” says Saeed. The night time before the picnic, all of the kids could be too excited to sleep. By 7am, the celebration would reach the bar ka in keeping with, the neighbourhood banyan tree, underneath which the tongas was once parked.
The picnic abate always included three matters: rawa maida paratha, hari mirch ka keema and sarauli mangoes, which could be crammed in a copper bucket coated with ice slabs.
Finally, the tonga might tik tok from Turkman Gate to Dilli Gate to ITO to Lodhi Road to Safdarjung’s Tomb to Hauz Khas to Adhchini to Mehrauli. “That New Delhi was now not this New Delhi,” factors out Fareed. “We exceeded thru sunsan sarke (empty avenues) and had been pleased to identify an occasional vehicle… on nearing Hauz Khas, the road reduce through farm fields.”
In Mehrauli, the tonga might stop by means of the grassy floor at Jahaz Mahal, beside Shamsi lake. “We children would quick tie our swings approximately the tree branches and play at the jhoola for hours. At some factor the grownups could unroll the chandni, the cloth of pure white cotton, on the ground, and unfold a dastarkhan over it,” recalls Saeed.
Following the lunch, the own family might hop on to the tonga, and prevent to offer prayers on the Sufi shrine of Mehrauli’s Hazrat Khwaja Qutubbudin Bakhtiyar Kaki. “On the adventure back, we would fast doze off,” says Fareed.
As the night lengthens, the brothers preserve changing notes on their lengthy-in the past Mehrauli outings.