New Delhi: Connaught Place once used to be a walkers’ paradise, according to people who have seen the quaint market of Lyutens’ Delhi transform into a bustling commercial hub.
Restaurants laid out tables in the open and a generation grew up reading English and Hindi novels sold at local bookstores, Vivek Shukla said. With authorities planning to make CP “pedestrian-only” zone, he hopes that some bit of old charm will return to the place.
“We have to give our town planners a chance. It’s no more the quite place it used to be,” Mr Shukla said. He has lived around CP since 1960s and loves the legacy left behind by British architect Robert Tor Russell.
Russell designed CP as a double-storeyed building — residential area on the first floor and commercial establishments on the ground. Construction of CP completed in 1933. “The market is in the shape of a horseshoe. People who owned the shops lived on the first floor,” Mr Shukla said.
Connaught Place in the year 2017. (Biplab Banerjee)
“CP never had such a huge crowd coming in. People used to visit the place with their friends and family. In the evening, restaurants used to put their tables out,” he said. Mr Shukla, who has worked as a journalist for decades, has an upcoming book on the “unsung” architects of Delhi, which includes names like Robert Russell.
Parking lots are full in CP almost throughout the week, despite a steep rise in parking charges. But Naresh Kumar Marwah, who own one of the oldest shops in the market said: “Those who come in their swanky cars buy from our stores. Why has the New Delhi Municipal Council woken after 80 years to preserve the heritage?” Mr Marwah claimed that businesses will be severely hit due to the ban on motorised vehicles.
“How are we even supposed to get the supplies for our stores? How will our employees come? Why doesn’t the authorities directly tell us that we should bring the shutters down for three months?” he said, adding that ill-thought-out experiments like these are bound to fail.
