The Fall of Old Delhi!

The other day we decided to visit the much talked of 'Paraanthe Waali Galli' in Chandni Chowk, Dad, Mum, brother and I. I loved a good parrantha any day, but the journey promised to be tiresome. It was impossible to drive up because of the distance and the traffic, so we had to drive up to the nearest metro station and take the metro.
The metro was crowded as usual, but I didn't mind the journey, hardly ten minutes. We disembarked at Chawri Bazaar, the station before Chandni Chowk, Mum had some shopping to do. The market was a fair distance from the station, so we had to take a rikshaw. At this point, I suggested that we take two rikshaws, but the rikshaw-wallah said with pompous reassurance, "Ho jaayega bhai, do aage, do peeche." The 'peeche' was a nothing more than a plank with a rusty iron rod running accross it about chest high, not unlike an amusement park ride, and naturally, my brother and I were dismissed to it.
So we set off, four people, overweight to say the least, being towed through an ocean of activity by a set of skin and bones in comparison. But the man was an expert- he meandered cleverly between pedestrians, motorcycles, bullock carts, hand carts and horses, and we progressed at a very lively pace considering the situation. He took us through numerous shortcuts- paths just wide enough to accomodate a rikshaw and, say, two pedestrians. Lined along every path were innumerable shops that claimed to sell everuthing to microwave ovens to cheap kites. And the kites were so abundant they might have outnumbered the people. It seemed to be the season for kite flying, as every shop stocked them. They came in all shapes, sizes, colours, materials and prices.
The air was saturated with the smell of fried, oily food from homes and restaurants, mixed with the odour of sweat from labourers who engaged themselves in a plethora of activities, from pulling huge handcarts to carrying people around in rickshaws to sweeping the streets to making paraanthas in roadside restaurants. And the sounds- the sounds were loud and ceaseless- people calling out loud greetings to each other as they passed, the rickshaw-wallahs shouting 'Raasta!' at the top of their voices to clear the way ahead of bodies, motorcyclers hurling profanities at the rickshaw-wallahs and the handcart-wallahs, who in their turn flung them them back even louder, shopkeepers advertising their wares, hawkers attracting customers for goods ranging from jalebis to digital watches.
The sights, sounds and smells of Old Delhi were beggining to sink into me. And sitting uncomfortably on the back of a rickshaw, holding on for dear life, I felt a little bit like Shantaram on his first tour of Bombay. But reality struck hard moments later. There was a big bump on the road ahead. The equilibrium of the vehicle, precariously tipped towards the back already, gave way when the rickshaw attemted to negotiate the bump. There was a moment when I thought I was floating in mid-air, and a split-second later, the rickshaw went down on its backside, much like a tipsy elephant. And as I mentioned, my brother and I were perched on this backside, so the weight of the rickshaw, with mum and dad and the rickshaw wallah still on it fell flat onto our (my brother's and mine) stomachs, which, thankfully, acted rather like shock absorbers. I hit my shoulder on a rock and bruised the back of my thigh. I didn't really see what happened above, but Dad told me later that Mum and he jumped out, and Mum ran towards us screaming 'Mere bacche! Mere bacche!' The poor rickshaw-wallah was a good six feet above the ground pressing down on the pedals trying to level the vehicle. It was quite a spectacle. Bystanders came to help us, suppressing their laughs, commenting on our indecision of opting to travel four in a rickshaw. We thanked them and told them we were okay, paid off the rickshaw-wallah and now with the wisdom of hindsight, decided to walk the rest of the way, as the market was not very far.
After and hour of uneventful shopping, we set off to find Paraanthe waali galli. Basing our route on directins given by shopkeepers en route, each of whom insisted 'bas aage hi hai, do minute," we plodded on for about half an hour and finally, four shaken, famished people reached a veritable oasis in the sweltering desert that Chandni Chowk was. There were several paraantha joints in the galli, but one of them came with strong reccomendations, and luckily as we entered, four people were just leaving. We sat down to our collective relief, and had a long draught of water each and slowly glanced toward the menu.
It was a huge of assortment of paraanthas made out of anything you can imagine- from kela to karela. We ordered the Mewa, Kaju, Paneer, Rabri, Khurchan, Paapad and Matar paraanthas and a lassi each to go with them. They took some time to bring our food, and I got time to look around. It was a very small place, seated about thirty cramped people. The witers jostled their way through the diners to serve paraanthas that were made outside the place in tens and hundreds. A certificate hanging on the wall indicated that the little establishment was over a hundred years old. A few photographs of the owner of the place with various dignitaries like a few MPs and MLAs were hung in places, although I suspect that the one with the Prime Minister is fake.
Anyhow, lunch was served in ten minutes and we fell upon it and ate it in earnest, and very few words were exchanged. It was totally worth the money, which wasn't much by any standards. We finished it off in ten minutes, paid the bill and walked to the Chandni Chowk metro station, which wasn't far away (we got off at Chawri bazaar earlier, which is the stop before Chandni Chowk). The metro ride to the car and the drive home were refreshingly uneventful, and the long sleep afterward felt extremely well deserved.
I woke up a few hours later with a sore shoulder and a bruised thigh. I had visited 'asli' Delhi and lived to tell the tale.