Cracking the maze
Diwali shopping is incomplete without a visit to environs surrounding Cotton Street. You don’t need to stroll down a maze of lanes because people are always there to push you wherever, writes Mathures Paul In Chitpur each lane has its own unique blend of personality. The spectrum comprises the flamboyant to the demure, the ideal to the repellent. And the people somehow manage to fit together, selling wares over chit chat. The photographer stood helpless, outnumbered, before the different varieties of ladoo, aloo dum, samosa, kachodi… thinking which to click, which to eat. As Diwali closes in, the bustle reaches a feverish pitch on the lanes hemming in Cotton Street. The festival of lights is more than bursting a few firecrackers. Here shopping means a little more than buying a sari or two. Chitpur needs to be divided into bits and pieces to get a rough idea about what goes on inside these narrow lanes. If historic buildings is your interest, there are a plenty for your eyes. Instead, U...