Meet the Devi of Hazrat Nizamuddin

A mountain woman, who has found home in the basti around the shrine

The elderly woman was walking alone with three bags on that day. One in her hand, two on her back. One of the bags was actually a large sack.

This reporter spotted her singular silhouette in central Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin basti, long before the city shrunk into a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. The woman was dressed in a mustard-green tunic, falling over a pink kaftan-like garment. Her accessories included black-rimmed glasses and red-andyellow glass bangles. She was walking down the Mirza Ghalib street, a lane of kebab stalls, tea kiosks and meat shops that is named after the famous Mughal-era poet—the street actually ends in front of his tomb.

“We started seeing this aurat (woman) about six months ago,” said a bearded grocer, holding the holy Quran on his lap. “She has no home but now she lives in the Basti.” His neighbour, an observant eatery owner, gave his input, adding that the woman tended to stop outside every shop of the neighbourhood, once a day, and would wait to be given some money — but, he said with great astonishment, she never uttered even a single word. Apparently, the woman would spend most of her day sitting next to a bus shelter on Lodhi Road.

That afternoon this reporter spotted her standing outside the Hussaini Hotel. I asked for her name. She looked up at her interlocutor, smiled and muttered something incomprehensible in a very low voice. It was impossible to untangle her words. The mild-mannered owner of the Hussaini Hotel came to the rescue. He said he once tried to talk to the woman and figured out that her name was Devi, and that she had come to Delhi from a village high up in the mountains. He said she has no one she can call her own in Delhi.

Meanwhile, the woman walked on. She stopped some distance ahead and took out a small handkerchief from her handbag. It had a few coins and cash, and some medicines. She gazed at the contents of the handkerchief for about a minute, after which she kept it back in her bag.

She delicately placed the bag on her head, and walked ahead casually as if she were heading to a market for shopping.

This week, the area has found itself at the heart of the coronavirus pandemic. The by-lanes of Hazrat Nizamuddin basti are swarmed with the homeless, including this woman. One hopes that they are somehow being looked after.