From refugee market to elitist outpost: the curious journey of Khan market

The curious journey of Khan market in the national capital.

In the shops of Khan Market, the features and manners of many owners — Hindu relocatees of 1947 from the Frontier Province — are unmistakable.

A few years ago, a student visiting Delhi from Oxford was looking for picture postcards. These are rare items in India, but we tried our luck at a stationer’s in Khan Market. The elderly gentleman at the counter listened to Nadir’s question. Instead of answering, he looked at him intently and asked, “Where are you from?” When his hunch that Nadir was from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier province (after 2010, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) turned out to be true, he was overjoyed. Coffee/tea and thanda/garam were eagerly offered, and they plunged into a conversation, where nostalgia was inseparable from a sense of community.