Vinyl Destination

in dinoñ garche dakan meñ hai baḌī qadr-e-suḳhan 

kaun jaa.e 'zauq' par dillī kī galiyāñ chhoḌ kar

An anatomy of anachronistic artefacts awaited me as I alighted from the Metro. “Chandni Chowk!” the speakers called out. It was a junction of sorts where the crowd bisected. One part made its way to the Old Delhi Railway Station. The other, of which I was a part, moved headfirst into history. 

It was a mellow September day. As this was my first solo trip to the alleys of Shahjahanabad, I banked on the modern flaneur’s best friend: Google. It is, however, known for its problematic ways, how it nearly always overlooks the concept of displacement. (Or maybe it’s me.) And so, after running around in circles for fifteen minutes, I was able to re-centre my navigator and my attention on the real purpose of coming here: a century-old record-shop.,.

En route, I could see the back of the Jama Masjid. Its archetypal Mughal architecture is ubiquitous here. From handmade drawings on shop hoardings to pamphlets stocked outside a printer’s and calendars on the walls of small shops, it is everywhere.  I could not help but marvel at the level of communal accommodation here. While the Chandni Chowk area buzzes with calls to Allah, the Hindu neighbourhood close by, Chawri Bazar, was calling out to India's first superhero: Hanuman. One more stationary moment there, appreciating the syncretism of old Delhi, and I would have been competing with Manoj Kumar in nationalism. Instead, I trudged on towards Meena Bazaar. Queues of roadside vendors filled the street, beyond which fell a low-lying area, full of tool shops. Heeding my faithful assistant’s robotic directions, I stepped down the sandy steps to enter a maze of shops. My assistant gave up, the day gave in to the locals. Rusty shops house hearts of gold – or so Manoj Kumar would have believed. 

One such shop was my destination: 256, Shah Music Centre. As I walked in, I was assailed by a curiously heartwarming shot of nostalgia. With no music stores left back home in Gurgaon, it was almost cathartic to witness loaded stacks of vinyl records. The shop was divided into two halves: one section was dedicated to browsing records, the other housed the payment counter. I had got in touch with the owner in advance and he introduced me to Moeen bhai. I followed him to the browsing section where an enthusiastic couple were fishing out old ghazal records from the stacks. The shop was small but filled to the brim with records, cassette decks, an old telephone and an amplifier over which a vintage turntable was housed. I watched in awe as Moeen bhai adjusted the stylus and dropped the needle on the groove of a 7-inch. The room filled with analogue bliss. 

Unfortunately, I was on a budget, financial as well as temporal, and so, after wandering around for a bit, I cut to the chase and asked a couple of questions. I was briefed on the rate list. As I panned from left to right, the prices went up from five hundred rupees to about a thousand and a half. Moeen bhai gave me a stool to browse to my heart's content. It was the first time I was looking at vinyls up close. They stocked many famous English ones. Closer home, they had first-pressings of ‘80s Bollywood music. I was, however, more interested in debuting my record collection with Jagjit Singh. After all, I am the ghazal aficionado and poet of my family. To my delight, I found a rare copy of The Latest, kept along with the rest of Singh’s discography. Had the floor not been a humble coating of wood and carpet, I would have jumped for joy as Moeen bhai began to play the record on the turntable: “Yeh daulat bhi lelo, ye shohrat bhi lelo, bhale chheen lo mujhse meri jawaani. Magar mujhko lauta do bachpan ka saawan, woh kaagaz ki kashti woh baarish kaa paani…” My guide stood smiling with pride. Battling bittersweet reluctance, I gave in to the devil and fished out a thousand and a half for that record. While packaging it gently in a bag, Moeen bhai told me, “Hifaazat se rakhiyega. Nawabi shauk hote hain ye!” I nodded in affirmation, thanked him and left Shah Music Centre, firm in my resolve to come back once again. 

Out on the street, I realized I was famished. I summoned my assistant and reached Karim’s Hotel without any fuss. Here, I saw a courtyard filled with hungry people eager to have a slice of Mughlai perfection. Even five minutes of waiting felt unbearable to my rumbling stomach. The weight of the record further added to my woes. Finally, after kebabs and kulfi-falooda, I got myself a rickshaw ride to Chawri Bazaar.

Its wheels turned and orchestrated a mechanical symphony, accompanied by the banter of Delhi aunties haggling over suits, the sounds of a busy marketplace, over which a loudspeaker blared the song, “Maa sherawaliye! Tera sher aa gaya!” I knew that my destination was near. I stopped at a hub of dry fruit sellers, adjacent to which stood the aromatic sweet shop of Chaina Ram where I bought besan ladoos as a birthday present for my father. The stock loader, who was perhaps in a hurry to get things done, dropped a sweet packet or two. “Sambhaal ke bhai!”, the cashier shouted from his nook. The sweet shop tempted me to venture into the other food joints here, each echoing the crispiness of fresh onions being tossed into hot oil. “Flavourful”, I thought. The same is true for the dialects they spoke here. Lip-smacking linguistics, indeed. 

On the walk back, a new storm brewed inside me – a little storm, albeit – and it dampened the surrounding hullabaloo. I dwelled on the dialogues of the day as I walked past the century-old structures, which had seen reigns rule and raze. Then I heard the sound of development conquering them, with drills and cranes engaged in a powerful crescendo. Development has no language, I thought. 

The advancing afternoon had donned a purplish tinge, the sky was vast and memorable. Scurrying past the hustle-bustle, I reached a familiar blue-red gateway. “Chandni Chowk!”, the speakers called. It was a long journey to Gurgaon.