Updated on: Sept 13, 2025 06:57 pm IST
Sadak Prem Narayan in Old Delhi features dilapidated buildings and a vanished tea stall, reflecting its rich yet neglected history.
Nobody being accosted here is able to give any gyan on Prem Narayan of Old Delhi’s Sadak Prem Narayan. The gentleman at Junaid Bawarchi Khurram Bawarchi banquet kitchen explains his ignorance, saying “Prem Narayan was born before my time.” Next moment, he shares all that he knows on the subject: “Prem Narayan must have been somebody important.” He however gamely acknowledges the truth that the sadak, road, has too many dilapidated doorways, and too many dilapidated buildings.
Sadak Prem Narayan starts from Gali Choori Wallan, and ends at Seetaram Bazar. The starting point is marked by a Greek, or Yunani, influence. Meaning: it is the site of Delhi Government’s Yunani Dawakhana and Sugar Clinic. Directly opposite is a beautiful blue wooden door. It is part of an old, derelict building. The door is on the building’s upper floor, directly overlooking the road. If somebody opens the door from within, and steps out, he would straight fall down to Sadak Prem Narayan.
One beautiful mansion on the road is home to labourers, who transport construction material on carts across the Walled City. This afternoon, the darkened interiors are filled with bricks and a couple of shovels. A young man in lungi is lying atop a mound of cement. The peeling musty wall behind is revealing patches of old-fashioned lakhori bricks.
The area’s popular meeting point was a roadside tea stall. It consisted of an arched niche scooped into the wall of yet another dilapidated building. The stall owner would walk to the spot every morning from his nearby one-room rented pad, which he shared with a group of brick-layers. He would swiftly rustle out the stall from a mishmash of things—a stove, a kettle, a pan, a steel tray, boxes of sugar and chai patti, plastic glasses, strainers, and a few chai time snacks such as the flaky fen, made in the neighbourhood bakeries. He would carry the entire stuff in a rusty metal trunk that the customers would use as bench. The stall no longer exists. The niche exists.
The road is climaxed by a beautiful but severely damaged door, fronted by a pile of garbage. Fat rats are trooping out from inside the door. See photo.
