Mar 10, 2017
Festive discounts on hotel bookings (in case you’re a weekend-break addict), radio taxis that offer to bring dholwallahs to the doorstep, and special pedicure-manicure to help you get rid of stubborn colours — with the advent of marketing via WhatsApp and emails, the buzz around traditional festivals like Holi has also changed. What hasn’t changed much is the experience of buying colours and other Holi accessories from the dusty street markets in Old Delhi.
Sadar Bazaar, Pul Bangash and several other markets in this part of town are where most neighbourhood shops get their supplies from. For ₹20, you can go home with a kilo of gulaal — available in bottle green, pink, yellow and purple shades. The slightly more expensive variety — the one without chemicals — is for about ₹40 a kilo. This year, Modi masks are aplenty, pichkaris fashioned as post-demonetisation currency are also haute.
A large number of the vendors in these markets are from outside Delhi. Hapur in western Uttar Pradesh, for example, is home to many of them. And some of them are in this business for more than two generations.
Photos by: Kamal Narang
