[jyotirmoy]

Take the swanky metro and get down at the equally swanky Chawri Bazaar underground station. Take the escalator up and step in to another world in another time.

  Take the turn to the left and enter Ballimaran. In the Mughal period this area was inhabited by people who rowed boats and hence the name. The most famous resident of this place was poet Mirza Ghalib who lived in Gali Qasim Jan. The Nawab of Loharu was another illustrious inhabitant of the place. It was his property that came to Ghalib as inheritance after his marriage with Umrao Begum, sister of the Nawab. In later years another famous writer Hali took up residence in Ballimaran.

As you walk the street of Ballimaran you will come to a T-junction where you will find the haveli of Ghalib. At night this place looks like a scene from the past. The whole area is full of shops selling all sorts of goodies like dry fruits, freshly baked cookies, kababs, biriyanis & in winter steaming Nihari. This is the only place where you can have Nihari with bone marrow.

During day time you will hear the tick-tack-too sounds of the mallets of the silver-leaf -- chandi-ka-varq -- makers who have been plying their trade for centuries, beating a silver wire until it becomes a dainty leaf fit to adorn the best of sweets -- gulab jamuns, barfi, kalakand !!!
The beating of silver or gold into the thinnest leaf is an offshoot of the belief that consumption of precious metals acts as an elixir. Even now Unani and Ayurvedic practitioners prescribe medicines coated with silver- leaf as the best tonic for the heart and mind, and as cure for palpitation.
There is this story about a henpecked silversmith who could not find work,  got disgusted with life and went away to the forest to end his life. It was a full moon night and he espied a group of fairies beating out little whisps of silver in the moonlight and blowing them like thistle down in the night air. This went on till dawn and by the time the fairies departed the silversmith had wrested the secret of making silver leaf from them. It is said the discovery excited him so much that he hurried back to the city to ply the trade and become a rich man. Today the silver-beaters' clothes are tattered, their hands are in pain because of constant friction with the mallet.