Backalley Nirvana

Residents of Chuna Mandi in Paharganj have a story. A year or so ago, cars—some of them with vip lights and sirens—waited for skimpily clad 'Russian' girls outside Hotel Saina. Though these girls—who used to be picked up and dropped back at various unearthly hours—can no longer be seen walking out of the hotel today, miffed neighbours are still not convinced that hotels like Saina have suddenly been sanitised. Last August, a Delhi police raid had recovered Chinese silk and fake medicines from Uzbek women staying at the hotel but there was no talk of flesh trade.

Residents, however, insist that the hotel owner paid for the police's silence. The cops, on the other hand, say establishing such things is not only difficult but impossible, given the libertine temper of the locality. Says acp, Paharganj, Mangesh Kashyap: "I've asked these hotel owners to discourage young Russian and cis women from staying in their hotels." With Olga Kozirava's recent confession of supplying girls and money to customs officials, claims of Chuna Mandi residents now seem to have been vindicated. Strangely, these harried residents have so far never complained against what they perceive as cultural pollution.

Nonchalance is Paharganj's heritage, entwined with its origin: it has historically existed outside the realm of 'official' jurisdiction. Urban historian Narayani Gupta traces Paharganj's existence to ruler Ferozshah Tughlaq's Ferozabad—the fifth city of Delhi—where it started out in relative isolation as a market atop a hillock. Later, when Shahjahanabad—the seventh city of Delhi built by Shah Jahan—was being circumscribed by a mud-and-brick boundary, Paharganj was left outside its precincts. The market, therefore, is not used to capitulate to taxation and civic obligations. Born of such freedom and exemption, it is hardly surprising that today it is the hub of international sleaze and multi-tasking racketeers. But old-timers like Syed S. Shafi, former planning member, Delhi Development Authority, and member of the now defunct Delhi Urban Arts Commission, differ on its "negative reputation". Says he: "It is a convenient place for middle- to low-income travellers to stay." There are some 250 hotels—tariff ranging from Rs 100 to Rs 1,000 a night.

But the question whether Paharganj hotels are all sleaze and slime still remains unanswered. One thing is for sure, their fortunes and character are inextricably linked to the people who are trying to make a living and forge an identity here. Take the example of a middle-aged Arab—whose name and surname in Arabic mean easy and thankful respectively. He has friends in every nook and cranny of the market. He lives up to his name by ensuring the easy availability of hashish, cocaine and Ecstasy. His customers, therefore, are naturally thankful. But Easy is an unhappy man. "I have no productivity," he says, between swigs of Kalyani Black Label beer and puffs of Chinese Toupai cigarettes at a restaurant without bar licence. "I have no identity here." His list of woes is endless. Twenty years ago Easy left his native Syria to escape what he calls attacks on his personal freedom. Today, he is in the midst of an identity crisis because he is a "political refugee" with no travel documents and escape money. Says he: "I have to sell this shit to survive."

Easy knows Paharganj like the back of his nicotine-stained hand. "Give me Rs 7,000 right now and I get you Russian babes." Questions about the where and how of it are all efficiently evaded. "Where are you staying?" he asks. "Hotel India International... not a problem. You can take in 20 people there if you want." Interestingly, the "instrections" nailed to the doors in every room of the hotel prohibit "lady guests of ill-repute". But "instrections" are meant to be taken lightly. The stair-walls in Hotel Hare Rama are pasted with neon caveats prohibiting "chars and narcotics", both of which are openly smoked in chillums and popped within its rooms and in its open rooftop restaurant.

It's a Tuesday evening, and there is a blackout in the area after a transformer conked out some 100 minutes ago. But there's no sign of the privately generated power (and noise) subsiding. The three-storey Hotel Saina is not only lit from the roof down to its basement but is also crowned with coloured lightbulbs. At Saina's rooftop restaurant, three Central Asian men troop in with plastic bags full of vegetable and a bottle of Uzbek vodka. These are subsidised (and almost exclusively long-staying Central Asian) guests who cook their own vegetables in the hotel kitchen and offer generous libations of vodka to the waiting staff. They (like every other guest in every other rooftop restaurant) are exempted from corkage. The Uzbeks are the only guests at the 24-hour restaurant but business, says the Bihari cook, who only knows the Russian for yes and no, will pick up after 10 pm. Those desiring all-night nightcaps are also welcome at Saina.

Here in the heart of water-hungry Delhi some of these three-storey lodges, which pass off as hotels, have swimming pools. Prince Polonia in Chuna Mandi has an open-air one on its top storey. It also has a poolside restaurant and a biggish cabana that doubles up as guest room—only Rs 750 a night. Every evening the cops come visiting to leaf through check-in registers but it's well known that 'silence fee' changes hands during many such visits.

Still, "there's just no other place like this in Delhi", says Jeff, whose job through the week is to accost strangers with offers of hashish and brown sugar in laminated tolas. He's of mixed parentage—Mozambique and South Africa—and shuttles between Indonesia, India and Pakistan to procure and peddle his stuff. "Yo, brother," he calls out to a passing rasta-haired white man and rushes to make a quick transaction.

Restaurants like the Grand Sindhi don't really approve of Jeff and his extended brotherhood. That's why Jeff and other "Nigerian" peddlers like him are not allowed in unless accompanied by whites.

The 'rights of admission' exist here in various other forms too. For instance, the pool tables and the German bakery at Hotel Ajay aren't open to people who look and sound Indian. "Only for hotal (sic) guests," is what the staff usually say. But beneath this apparent injustice lies the fact that hotels like Ajay and Hare Rama are also jaunts for some serious smoking. So, when power is restored after two hours and the gensets stop chugging, the denizens of Paharganj instinctively know that night has just begun.