Delhiwale: Dante's CP, last circle

Hindustan Times

01-05-2025

Things are winding down, giving a sense of an ending. This sentiment besets a Connaught Place (CP) stroller, who finally steps into its Outer Circle, after faithfully journeying through all of the preceding circles.
In Dante's epic poem Inferno, Hell has nine circles, each denoting a distinct tier of sin and damnation. Similarly, Delhi's colonial-era CP has four circles, each encompassing a world of distinctly different sensations. The initial three circles were tracked over the previous weeks. The first runs along CP's core: the Central Park. The second is the popular colonnade, alive with showrooms and street performers. The third lends the shopping district its perennially dishevelled appearance.
The fourth circle has its colonnade dutifully interspersed with points of hyper-liveliness, comprising cafés and restaurants. But these crowded islands are bridged by sterile stretches of long-shuttered storefronts, the silence and solitariness relieved by only a handful of venerable landmarks. The notables among them include Amrit Book Company in N block, which used to be patronised by Dr BR Ambedkar. And Rikhi Ram Musical Instrument Manufacturing Co. in G block, which was famously visited by the Beatles.
Indeed, the two icons are CP's last standing survivors—Amrit since 1936, Rikhi Ram since 1920.
This noted, the Outer Circle also has two long-standing living landmarks. One is the so-named Bangali Babu, a pavement barber in N block—'I have been working here since the time Pandit Nehru was our Prime Minister.' The other is Lalji, a seller of sweet dishes (rasgulla, rabri, rasmalai) in H block—'I've been selling these for 60 years.'
The Outer Circle's most sublime aspect, however, lies in its four-arched passageways. Linking the corridor to the Middle Circle within, each passageway shelters a unique secretive world of its own. The one in G block, for instance, bears a souvenir of the pre-cellphone era. A rusting plaque is engraved with the drawing of a rotary dial landline telephone, informing that 'You can make local calls here.' Most likely, this must have been the site of a telephone booth (PCO!), a public utility now as uncommon as… say, a bookstore selling books on Marx and Lenin.
Incidentally, the Outer Circle houses a rare bookstore selling books on Marxism and Leninism. People's Publishing House is embalmed with the residue of a vanished era. Some volumes trace their publishing origins to a country whose existence ended decades ago—the USSR.
Close by, towards the Regal Cinema building, lurks the extremity of G block. It is the best vantage point to see Connaught Place's most panoramic sunset. This is also where the Outer Circle ends. With this, the four-volume series on Dante's CP also ends.