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DOWN MEMORY LANE

The Rs.700-crore plan approved by the NDMC to renovate Connaught Place by July 2010 for the Commonwealth Games will shift the spotlight again not only on this 20th Century mart but also on the ancient Hanuman Mandir and Gole Market – which too will be redeveloped. Named after the Duke of Connaught, it was designed by Robert Russell and despite the coming of the Metro has retained its original look over the past nearly 70 years. Before it was built people from the Walled City, Nizamuddin and Mehrauli used to come here for partridge shooting for it was a wilderness with a profusion of babool trees.

In 1857 many of the so-called mutineers hid here after escaping from Shahjehanabad via the Delhi, Ajmeri and Turkman gates. At that time the area occupied by the Ramlila grounds was a huge lake, Shahji-ka talab, where people came for a swim, fishing or boating. Beyond the lake were fields, where vegetables were grown and they covered the ground where stands the J.P. Hospital complex. After the fields were the thickets that extended right up to what later became Connaught Circus.

Besides the Hanuman temple, a number of smaller temples and mosques existed in the area. The one big inhabited place then was the palace of Maharaja Jai Singh, where now Gurdwara Bangla Sahib stands. A prominent landmark even in the 18th Century was the Jantar Mantar built by the Maharaja during the reign of his friend, Mohammad Shah Rangila. It was in the time of this Moghul emperor that Nadir Shah invaded Delhi and massacred its inhabitants.

Some of those who escaped found shelter in the hilly tract of Raisina, where New Delhi was to come up after some 200 years.

Mohammad Shah was fond of dance and song and shikar. He must have passed through the babool thickets on his hunting trips and also on visits to the palace of Jai Singh of Jaipur. Many centuries before him Firoze Tughlak also hunted in the area. He had a hunting lodge, Malcha Mahal, close to Willingdon Crescent where now live Begum Vilayat Mahal’s son and daughter, Prince Raza and Princess Sakina, with a large number of dogs.

Lutyens would have built New Delhi towards Kingsway Camp, the original site chosen after the Coronation Durbar of 1911 when King George V and Queen Mary visited Delhi. But finally Raisina Hill was chosen and Sir Teja Singh became the chief engineer. Scindia House is another old landmark of the area, but the house of Gwalior later parted with it and it came into the possession of Khushwant Singh via his father.

When Connaught Place was completed many of the shops went for a song as nobody wanted to carry on business in such an isolated place. Then Chandni Chowk was the main shopping centre and Kashmere Gate the promenade frequented by the British and the rich. People had to be persuaded to take up shops in Connaught Place.

Among the first to move in here was the painter Alfred Thomas, who opened his studio for which he paid a rent of a few rupees. He was the one whose painting occupied pride of place in St James’s Church, Kashmere Gate.

Another famous resident of Connaught Place was Mir Mushtaq Ahmed, the freedom fighter who later became the first Chief Executive Councillor of Delhi. Not far from C.P. lived the poet and writer Hasrat Mohani whose ghazal “Chupke Chupke” has been made famous by Ghulam Ali.

Because of intense commercial activity and the consequent congestion, many old residents of Connaught Place have moved elsewhere and those who remain have been witness to the degeneration of this once fashionable mart.

The NDMC’s ambitious plan should give it a new lease of life and stop the rot that set in after Partition.

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