This way to Chatta Momgram
}As part of our ‘Walled City dictionary’ series that explores every Old Delhi place. It’s like a perpetual eclipse here. A sunny, pitch blue sky elsewhere, but here so dim, such dampness, and a peculiar chill in the November air.
The narrow lane running along Chatta Momgram is so pressed in by houses on both sides, that the Phalak (sky) is almost invisible. It is 2pm, but it could be 2am. And such chuppi (silence), though the gallis elsewhere are full of people swearing, spitting, greeting, bargaining, shouting, eating, laughing and coughing.
Chatta is the Hindi for beehive, but in Purani Dili lingua franca, it implies an area where the upper storeys of houses arch over the street and block the view of the sky. The chatta of Chatta Momgram has three entrances, interconnected by loopy lanes. An elderly dweller, citing a book in Urdu, says that Momgram got its name from its original dwellers, who were candle makers, making candles out of mom — or wax.
Mombattiyan, the candles, were commonly used in houses across Delhi until some decades ago. A more efficient electricity supply, and these days the easy accessibility to mobile phone torch, have made them less indispensable. Even so, candles are available in local groceries, and a passerby points out that “people use candles to light the graves of loved ones in the Dillli Gate graveyard.”
Whatever, the community of candle makers have been long lost to history. Like in almost all Old Delhi alleys, people here have disparate profession. Some make mithai boxes, some are handicraft workers, and some are employed in bakeries and meat shops. And see, here is a workshop filled with men making charkha for kite flying. And lest we forget, Chatta Momgram is also home to the master pigeon player Ustad Akbar. You rarely seen him on the street however. He is mostly on his roof, with his pigeons.
Then there is the unique house of handicraft business owner Nazir Ahmad. It falls in both Chatta Momgram and Galli Addan, the adjacent street. One of its rooms lies on the first floor, if accessed from Momgram. That is, you have to climb the stairs to reach it. But the same room is on the ground floor if accessed from Galli Addan, since that street has a slightly higher altitude.
Meanwhile, during an hour-long excursion in Chatta Momgram, nobody has been spotted with mom candles. But here is Adnan confectionary, with young baker Adnan using the flame from two mom candles to seal the plastic packs of freshly baked buns (see photo). Dingdong, Mom lives on in Momgram.