Subscribe Now! Get features like
In the 1950s Model Town and neighbouring areas began developing in structured ways to make space for kothis. This colony structured itself around Naini Lake a previously natural lake now fed by borewells yet retained because living around a large body of water like that became a lifestyle for model town people. Houses over looked it and evening walks around the lake a community habit.
This house in Model Town is more familiar to me than others. There is something about life in old kothis that is comforting. Meet the Khuranas, old merchants of gold and silver from Chandini Chowk. As Delhi developed, merchants set shop in Chandni Chowk and built their homes in plots given to them. Rohit Khurana and his wife Alka, a young couple, never abandoned all that they learnt from Senior Khuarana. Their Chandni Chowk shop is a little room with floor seating, with mattresses in crisp white bedsheets, low and high cupboards full of samples and designs for clients. They also have a jewellery shop on the barsaati of the Khurana house. Now, Rohit is often accompanied by his young son who will pull out princess cuts with sharp precision. In many ways, the barsaati holds many joyful beginnings and milestones for all the families that call “Rohit uncle” their jeweller. That’s the thing with jewellery: it holds time through celebration.
I documented this house recently when I accompanied a friend to get her wedding ring. We finalised the gem, the size, the cut, and tried on other designs before finally taking a break with jaljeera and Khurana special aloo chips – cut and dried on the barsaati – peppered with chaat masala. The jewellery experience at Rohit uncle’s house is a ritual he inherited from the culture of Chandni Chowk. Shopping in the old city is gastronomical. You sit and the shop owner will always offer chaat, lassi, or kachori-chole. We were offered chole bhature but not just any chole bhature – north Delhi chole bhature, where the taste just cannot be compromised.
While the meal was being demolished, Alka walks in to take over from Rohit uncle, and us ladies leisurely look through jewellery we may never buy. Once all orders had been placed, we proceeded to the lower floors of the house – Rohit and Alka on the first floor, Senior Khurana on the ground.
Built in the 1970s, the internal organisation of the house remains intact. A long corridor runs through the centre, connecting the more private sleeping quarters at the rear with the public rooms at the front. The proportions are generous and the doors are solid wood. Ventilation and light were clearly considered at the time of construction.
What stands out is the retention of a 1970s domestic language. This was a period when modern materials entered the Indian home in a decisive way. Plywood was widely used for partitions and built-in storage, and marble was introduced as a visible surface rather than a structural one. Exterior walls were often treated with textured plaster to break the flatness of large surfaces. In this house, these elements remain largely unaltered. Window designs experiment with geometry but remain functional. Metal railings and grilles are fabricated with care, combining utility with ornament. Woodwork above lintels introduces a horizontal continuity across rooms. These are not decorative additions. They are part of a system that understands the house as a complete environment.
The 1970s did not produce spectacle. It produced a disciplined modernity. Houses were not designed to impress but to last. Materials were selected for durability, and details were repeated across rooms to create consistency. There was a clear understanding of how a house would age.
What is now under threat is this very model of living. Large plots are being subdivided. Kothis are replaced with builder floors that maximise built area but reduce spatial quality. Corridors disappear. Rooms become smaller and more standardised. Materials shift toward faster construction and shorter life cycles. In this process, a particular form of urban life is being dismantled. The kothis of Model Town and Civil Lines represent a phase in Delhi’s development where there was expansion without fragmentation.These houses are not relics. Their decline is not inevitable, but it is accelerating. And the question is no longer whether these kothis will survive in large numbers, it is whether their logic will be carried forward in any meaningful way.
Leave a Reply