If you are in Delhi & are having tourist instinct in your skull. Connaught place, a colonial era relic would always have a place in your list. It is beautiful, walker friendly business & tourist hub. High vaulted corridors & thick white pillars at inner & outer circle enhance grandeur of Market. Over the years individually owned landmark shops have given way to retail chains showrooms & to food outlets. Old single screen cinema halls are renovated into multiplexes. Discos rolled down their shutters. Laidback restaurants are history now.
Take metro to Rajiv chouk, CP’s underground metro terminal, & come up in central park, it was once home to people of fringes of society like prostitutes, drug addicted etc. which was revamped in 2006 & become as sanitized as middle class suburb. Couples lounges on grassy slopes, families sit in circles.
Stroll around inner circle, lined with showrooms, corridor dotted with various types of vendors including flute seller, book shops, bhelpuri wallas, panwallas, and smoker’s corners. Shoppers munching on bhelpuri. Office-goers do gossip on smoking breaks. Something 20 plugged in iPod & are busy in roaming around. Take lunch at old world Embassy restaurant (D-11), try chicken stroganoff. If you love books visit The new book depot (18-B) & check out latest publications, owner of this shop is eccentric but adorable whose father bought this shop from a French couple. Adjacent Golgotia book (17-B)store stores old finds for you.
Description on Connaught place never be complete if you don’t mention about its historical screen"Regal", first cinema hall of New Delhi since 1932. It was frequented by India first prime minister Nehru. Although it has run out look but grand staircase & historical screen will compensate it, so even if you are not in bollywood buy a ticket to its show.
There are two bargain Bazaar one is Janpath the flea market across the road from Regal apart from T shirts kurta leggings harem pants & jodhpur it sells accessories like rings necklace, anklets & earrings & second hand books which may stores occasional wonders, other is Palika bazaar , first underground market of Delhi famous for pirated DVD & fake branded wear. Above this market an area resembling old Central park surrounded by sky lines.Ear cleaners are searching here for customers. Lonely male cruise around for emergency love. Eunuch asks money, lovers exchange vows.
To dig out evening secrets of Connaught place come out to outer circle, branded shops are waiting. Daily workers are fall in for buses; beggars ask money, drugees smoke more hashish, anemic children sells colorful balloons. Bulbs twinkle from CP high-rises like statesman house & LIC building.
Drop you at @live bar(K-12) & enjoy right mood with live music
