My Karims Visit

My friend’s New Year resolution is to try all cuisines possible.

Whence & being a staunch non-vegetarian and also being in Delhi for so long , he couldn’t carry anymore of the insult of not eating at karims.

So, he slated to eat at karims near Jama Masjid, Old Delhi, after the visit to Book fair at Pragati Maidaan on the first day of the year and I adhered to his plan .

1st Jan 2011, Delhi still reeling under Cold wave, we put on our three layer protection and took off as planned. We were done with not-so-impressing (I felt last year’s was better) Book Fair by 2:30 and caught the next metro to Chandni chowk.


Well, metro rides are becoming so distressing & disgusting with the entire Delhi on metro all the time. It was suffocating ride.

But, then seeing the crowd and traffic in chandni chowk, I corrected myself as metro crowd of people was nothing to the multitude of people I saw there.
It was chaos all pervasive. We took a rickshaw to karims.

Initially I wondered how the rickshaw guy would drive through that commotion. However, what I experienced later changed my thinking altogether.

The deftness with which he drove startled me. He took the rickshaw through the “smallest gully “ I have ever seen.It was completely filled with swarms of people, small trolleys [carrying good to the shops], which were on the either sides of the lanes, bikes & mopeds all doing their circus to drive safely to the other end.

To me it looked a black hole and saw absolutely no option to get to the other end, it looked impossible. Conversely, the rickshaw guy thought "yes we can".

He took the rickshaw into this commotion and believe me, he drove through it without even halting the rickshaw even once I was dumbstruck. I looked at my friend, he looked dreaded.

Finally, we reached karims, I gave the rickshaw guy 40 bucks. As I gave him the money, an ounce of appreciation had blossomed in mind for him, for the skill he displayed, and with great awe I thanked him in my mind.

After, nearly 45 minutes of struggle to get a table, we had the highly praised karim’s delicacies.
My friend liked it, and I did not. However, my friend’s desire to eat at karims was fulfilled. So felt good about that.

The lane that comes out of karims, leads to main gate of Jama Masjid. As both of us had not visited this great mosque, we decided to have a inside tour of Masjid.

As rightly, described by all the historical and travel literature, it is a majestic structure. With reverence we toured through it.
We could see a guide-looking guy disgorging all the known English words to please a foreign group of tourists to earn his bread. Meanwhile, there was normal domestic crowd, couples, children and all sorts of people.

You could also get a glimpse of Red Fort from there. Again, I reminded my friend of our "many-times planned and failed" -Delhi Darshan. I have been here for more than 2 years & I’m yet to see Red fort, Qutab Minar & other must see places of visit of our capital. SAD, hmm... Sigh.

As we descended the large rocky steps of Jama Masjid, I could see the chaotic traffic picking up more commotion. But, this time I was not nervous, because I knew there would be some rickshawallah out there who would easily get us out.

We again hired a rickshaw, and this time it was more brutal traffic and art with which the rickshaw guy evaded everything to get us to chandni chowk metro is still prominent in my mind.

So, we reached the Metro station and again, huge swarms of people, but by now I became used to this rich profusion of people.

And, as we took a ride in the metro, back to our house, it was not the highly sought karim’s delicacies that was in my mind, but it was the adept rickshawallahs of Chadni chowk, the dynamic crowd & the streets shops selling all sorts of food and Jama Masjid that etched to my mind, like a motion picture.

That’s how my Karims trip on 1st of January this year ended; hope a long eventful year ahead.