NEW DELHI: In a dim, paper-cluttered room in Old Delhi’s Sitaram Bazar, a lone pen still scratches against paper. Once, dozens of deed writers worked in these lanes, drafting and translating legal records in elegant Urdu.
Today, only one remains — 71-year-old Aziz-ur-Rehman, who has been at his desk since 1976, turning brittle pages from the 1860s and even royal orders from the Mughal court into words the present can understand.
Just 500 metres from Chawri Bazar Metro station, down the narrow lanes near Bulbuli Khana, his small office feels like a time capsule.
On his table lies a fragile sheet from the 1860s — paper yellowed, ink still clear. Some documents bear the regal seal of the Mughal Badshah; others carry the stamp of the Delhi government in the early 20th century. Revenue records from 1979 sit beside local orders by Dayaganj Registrar dated from July 1947.
For Aziz, each translation is more than a conversion of words — it is a conversation across centuries. Every day, records arrive from as far as Kanpur, Bhopal and Amroha. In his seven-hour shift (11 am to 6 pm), he serves six to seven customers, dictating translations to his typist. He charges Rs 500 a page and rarely takes more than two days to finish a deed.
The shop itself is modest, yet its shelves carry the weight of history. Faded files, bound in red tape, lean like weary old men. An old wall clock, its face clouded with dust, ticks slowly as spider webs hang like lace in the corners. Piles of labelled, yellowing papers fill the space. A plastic bag holds his Delhi University degree and a letter of appreciation from the city’s Art and Culture Department.
A small water cooler sits next to half-torn chairs, while an enormous flat-screen TV beams the latest news — a jarring reminder that the world outside moves at a far faster pace.
Aziz traces his journey to 1973, when financial hardship forced him to leave school. His father was a tailor, a trade Aziz never took to. Instead, fate led him to Mohammad Aqil Mirza, an authorised deed writer who worked with Deen Dunia House near Jama Masjid and recognised his interest in learning.
In an era before photocopiers, Aziz began copying old documents written in cursive Urdu, earning a modest wage.
“With no photostat machines, copying was the only way to preserve records,” he recalls. “He gave me work, paid me something, and encouraged me to study further.” With Mirza’s support, Aziz earned advanced Urdu qualifications — Adib, Adib Mahir and Adib Kamil — along with English from Jamia Millia Islamia, Urdu from Aligarh Muslim University, and an M.A. in Urdu from Agra University. He also completed a diploma in Urdu translation from Delhi University.
He is empanelled with the Art, Culture and Languages department, government of Delhi currently. Since 1976, Aziz has translated the city’s legal heartbeat — property deeds, land revenue records, sale and mortgage deeds, waqf deeds, rent agreements, marriage certificates, relinquishment deeds, powers of attorney and even death certificates — from a time when Urdu was the language of governance.
Once, Sitaram Bazar was lined with deed writers. They sat outside shops and courtrooms, turning spoken agreements into binding words.
The best of them, Aziz recalls, knew not just the law, but the poetry in it — how to phrase a sentence so it carried both clarity and authority.
But as courts switched to Hindi and English, and typewriters gave way to computers, their numbers thinned. One by one, the pens fell silent.
Aziz remembers the last of his peers. Basant Narayan ran a shop near Chawri Bazar, next to Ashok Chaat Bhandaar, until illness forced him to close five years ago. Shahid Iqbal still works from Palika Bazar in Connaught Place. “No new generation has learnt the ethics of writing a deed,” Aziz says. Even into the 1980s, he wrote deeds himself before focusing solely on translation.
The work continues to flow — a testament to the lingering need for someone who can navigate the ornate Urdu of the past and render it faithfully for today’s bureaucracy.
Some clients bring family land documents dating back more than a century, seeking clarity on property rights.
Others arrive with marriage or inheritance papers that can decide the outcome of legal disputes. Each page he translates is handled with care, his fingertips brushing over brittle fibres as though they were relics.
He works in neat cursive Urdu, dictating to his typist when required, always mindful of precision. For him, a translation is not just about words — it is about preserving the intent and dignity of the original.
“The law used to live in Urdu,” he says. “Now, hardly anyone can read it.” He pauses, then adds with quiet pride: “I am only the messenger.”
In truth, he is also the last custodian of a vanishing craft — bridging the language of empires with the red tape of the present. In the fading lanes of Old Delhi, where the past often lingers in architectural fragments and forgotten trades, his shop stands as one of the last living links to a time when a pen, a page, and the right words could shape lives.