Chawri Bazar

This guide to Chawri Bazar in Old Delhi opens with its evenings as a district of tawaifs, the wealthy performer-courtesans whose Kathak, Hindustani music and Urdu poetry drew nobles up the stairs of the kothas through the Mughal era. It traces the lane's role as a place where disputes were settled and deals struck, the very meaning behind its name, before the Indian Rebellion of 1857 reshapes the street below. A verse by the poet Maulana Rasakh once captured this street, worth listening for as you walk it.