The Night I Got Lost in Chandni Chowk and Found the Real Delhi
The plan was simple. Walk into Chandni Chowk from the Red Fort side, eat some paranthe, buy a few spices, and be back at my hotel near Connaught Place by 8 PM.
I didn't get back until 11:30 PM. I'd eaten five separate meals. I'd wandered into a spice warehouse that has operated continuously since the Mughal era. I'd been invited into a haveli courtyard to drink tea with a family who'd lived in the same building for six generations. And I'd taken a wrong turn so profound that Google Maps gave up and just showed me a blue dot in a gray void.
It was the best night of my trip.
The First Wrong Turn
Chandni Chowk — the name means "Moonlit Crossroads" — is Asia's oldest surviving commercial street. Shah Jahan established it in the 17th century as the main avenue leading from the Red Fort. It was once a broad boulevard with a canal running down the center, reflecting moonlight. Hence the name.
The canal is long gone. The broad boulevard has been colonized by 400 years of encroachment — shops built into shops, second floors hanging over the street, electrical wiring that looks like abstract art made by someone having a very bad day. The lanes branching off the main road get progressively narrower until some are literally shoulder-width.
I entered from the metro station at 5 PM, heading for Paranthe Wali Gali — the famous "Lane of Paranthas" where half a dozen shops have been serving stuffed flatbreads since the 1870s. I found it easily. The lane is about 20 meters long, both sides lined with guys pressing parathas on cast-iron griddles.
I ordered a plate at the first shop. Aloo (potato) and pyaaz (onion) paranthe with pickle and mint chutney. INR 120 for the pair. The bread was flaky, the filling spiced but not overwhelming. A decent start.
But then I noticed a lane shooting off to the left. It was narrower than Paranthe Wali Gali, and it smelled like cardamom and dried chili. I followed my nose.
The Spice Lane
Within two minutes, I was in a part of Chandni Chowk that clearly didn't see many tourists. The shops here were wholesale spice dealers — massive sacks of turmeric, cumin, coriander, star anise, and about forty spices I couldn't identify lined both sides of a lane barely wide enough for a handcart.
An older man sitting on a wooden platform noticed me staring and waved me over. His name was Mohanlal (he said everyone calls him Lalji), and his family has been in the spice trade since — he wasn't sure — "before the British came, definitely."
He opened small cloth bags and held them under my nose one at a time. Kashmiri saffron. Malabar black pepper. Rajasthani red chili. Each one was a different world of scent. He explained the grades of saffron — the deep red threads versus the yellow (cheaper, less potent). He gave me a pinch of saffron to rub between my fingers. The stain lasted three days.
I bought 100 grams of saffron (INR 800 — cheap by international standards, he assured me, and he was right) and 250 grams each of whole cumin and black pepper. He wrapped them in newspaper and tied them with cotton string. The transaction took 45 minutes, most of it tea-drinking and conversation.
The Second Wrong Turn
Leaving Lalji's shop, I was oriented toward the Jama Masjid — I could see the minaret above the rooftops. But the lane twisted, forked, and deposited me in a fabric district. Rolls of silk, cotton, and synthetic cloth stacked floor to ceiling in narrow shops. Tailors working on old Singer sewing machines in what appeared to be closet-sized workshops.
A young man handed me a glass of chai. Just handed it to me, unsolicited, while I stood looking confused in his lane. "You're lost," he said in English. It wasn't a question.
I admitted I was.
"Everyone gets lost here. My grandfather says Shah Jahan designed it that way to confuse invaders." He laughed. "Probably just bad urban planning."
His name was Faisal. He ran a wholesale fabric business from a shop the size of my hotel bathroom. He invited me to see the rooftop.
We climbed four flights of narrow stairs — more ladder than staircase — and emerged onto a rooftop with a view I still think about. The Jama Masjid's dome and minarets to the south, the Red Fort's walls to the east, and a dense carpet of rooftops, TV antennas, water tanks, and drying laundry stretching in every direction. The call to evening prayer started from the Jama Masjid while I stood there. Multiple muezzins from multiple mosques, slightly out of sync, creating a harmonic echo across Old Delhi.
The Third Meal, the Fourth Meal, and the Fifth
Faisal pointed me toward Karim's — the legendary Mughlai restaurant near the Jama Masjid that's been serving since 1913. I found it after two more wrong turns. The nihari (slow-cooked meat stew, INR 250) was rich, unctuous, and deeply spiced. The roomali roti — bread so thin you can read through it — was thrown like a Frisbee from cook to counter.
That was meal three. Then I passed a jalebi cart outside Jama Masjid. The jalebis were being fried in a massive kadhai of bubbling oil, emerging as golden spirals that dripped syrup. INR 60 for a plate. Meal four.
Walking toward what I thought was the metro, I found a chaat vendor near Dariba Kalan (the jewelry lane). Dahi bhalla — fried lentil dumplings in yogurt with tamarind and green chutney. INR 40. Meal five.
I was full in a way that transcended physical discomfort and entered philosophical acceptance.
Finding My Way Out
At 9 PM, Chandni Chowk takes on a different character. Many of the retail shops have closed, but the food stalls are peaking. The electrical wiring overhead creates a strange amber glow. The crowds thin from impossible to merely dense.
I eventually found the Chandni Chowk metro station by following a group of college students who seemed to know where they were going. The metro — clean, air-conditioned, running every 3 minutes on the Yellow Line — deposited me at Rajiv Chowk (Connaught Place) in 8 minutes.
The contrast was jarring. I'd gone from 17th-century sensory chaos to a modern metro system in under ten minutes. That's Delhi's trick — it holds every century of India simultaneously, and the transitions happen without warning.
What I Learned
You can "do" Chandni Chowk efficiently. Walk in from the metro, hit Paranthe Wali Gali, walk to Jama Masjid, eat at Karim's, leave. Two hours. Tick the box.
Or you can get lost. Follow the smells. Accept the chai. Climb the rooftop. Let the city reveal itself at its own pace.
The classic day trip or overnight from Delhi is Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.
Complete the Golden Triangle with Jaipur, Rajasthan's Pink City.
I found more of Delhi in those six and a half confused hours than in the previous three days of organized sightseeing. The Red Fort is impressive. Humayun's Tomb is beautiful. But the lanes behind Paranthe Wali Gali — where the spice trader's family has been selling saffron since before the British, where the fabric seller shares his rooftop view with strangers, where five meals happen without planning — that's the real city.
Shah Jahan built Chandni Chowk for commerce. But it's survived because of something else — the human impulse to trade, feed, and connect in narrow spaces where you can't help but bump into each other.
I went in looking for parathas. I came out understanding Delhi.
