Delhiwale: When the subways were cool

They were not always like this, the subways of Connaught Place.
Most of the seven subways of Delhi’s premier shopping district suffer from serious squalor and, at times, feel downright spooky — as reported in this newspaper a month ago. This week, a follow-up dispatch informs that the municipality will get a private agency to look after CP’s subways.
Saddled with grimness, it is difficult to imagine that until some years ago, these same CP subways used to be far less hostile spaces. The Janpath subway, for instance, would be serenaded the entire day with classical ragas of an accomplished musician. Balbir Kumar would sit on the stairs playing “dard-bhari” melancholic melodies for hours, transforming the underpass into a musical underworld. An extraordinary bansuri player, he had professionally recorded for music companies, and had performed in Munich and Amsterdam. The Janpath subway was his cherished venue, he would insist.
Balbir Kumar isn’t seen any longer, but his legacy continues to pop up infrequently in the CP subways — seven months ago, a man was sighted playing a guitar at the Kharak Singh Marg subway. (One recent rainy afternoon, however, that subway was drowned in darkness. A citizen’s mobile phone torchlight helped her spot a water puddle just in time.)
More difficult to believe is the fact that the Janpath subway had briefly doubled up as an art gallery to stage exhibitions. Hurried passersby, however, would rarely pause, making one feel for the artists whose names would be displayed in small font sizes under their respective works.
Talking of public art, the walls of Sansad Marg subway are painted with postures of various yoga asanas, the background on each panel depicting a Delhi location (Purana Qila, Lotus Temple, Yamuna Ghat, and so on).
One memorable evening, about a decade ago, the Janpath subway was transformed into a setting straight out of New York, the city where something called b-boying originated. A part of the hip-hop genre, the street dance is said to have evolved in the 1970s among the Afro-American and Latino youth in New York’s Bronx borough. That evening, inside the Janpath subway, a bunch of desi boys were b-boying in superbly skilled moves. One of them twisted his hip, did a spin on the floor and then stood on his head. The sight was amazing — see photo.