Two different sides of Delhi live just across the 60-acre Deer Park. At one end, sits the tomb of Feroz Shah with its line of cafés, pubs and tattoo parlours. At the other end, is the 17th-century Jat-owned urban village of Humayunpur. This urban village, close to south Delhi, is the first stop for many of Delhi’s migrants and is home to the Northeastern, Tibetan and Nepali communities in the city. Here, people, driven by economic exigencies, turn their lives and professions over.
As Delhi became the hub of newly-opened call centres in the early 2000s, it attracted a young English-speaking population, “and we fitted the bill”, says Rubi Brahma, 38, who has been living in Humayunpur for more than seven years. Brahma moved to Delhi from Assam in 2013 to work at one such call centre in Gurugram. While the move made her financially independent, she missed Assamese food, which prompted her to open her restaurant, Oh Axom!, in 2014 in Humayunpur.
Flux has been the overriding factor for most activities in Humayunpur—whether one is setting up shop, changing the nature of one’s business, moving into a two-room set or returning a few months later to a basic accommodation. Brahma opened her restaurant right behind Yo Tibet, the oldest Tibetan restaurant of Humayunpur. Though her restaurant received love, it had to shut down soon after the lockdown was imposed in March 2020. But that could not compel her to give up on her food business; she changed tack to start her cloud kitchen. In December 2021, she re-opened the restaurant at a new location, in the same market, not far from where the old one had been.
“Earlier it was very difficult to source ingredients for Northeastern food, Assamese cuisine requires indigenous vegetables such as banana blossoms, fern, Assamese lemon and Chinese coriander. We only had the Asha store that sold them. I get my ingredients from a supplier, but now many other shops sell these,” she says.
More the merrier
Asha Store was established by Asha from Manipur; she used to sell smoked pork and cooked pork in a rice cooker from her home in 2008. Three years later, with the help of a supplier who got her indigenous ingredients, she established the store. It is now run by three sisters; their cat is a big part of the store’s identity.
“Similar shops have now come up in the lane,” says 27-year-old Asha Miji of Arunachal Pradesh’s Miji tribe. She also owns a restaurant—simply called Arunachali Restaurant— right next to Oh Axom!. “This is the second Arunachali restaurant in Delhi,” she says with pride. “The other one is in Dilli Haat.” Miji has been in Delhi since 2014, and worked as a makeup artist earlier. She moved back to her hometown in 2020 due to the lockdown but came back in 2022. This time, to open a restaurant. However, it was not until September last year that her business finally picked up.
What initially started as a small eatery that only sold Miji food such a white beans, now sells food from different Arunachali tribes -- Pike Pilla of the Galo tribe (this is a dish made with king chilli, bamboo shoot and pork) or the Chura Churpi chutney of the Monpas, a side dish to be eaten with rice. Her best-seller is a meat curry made of Mithun (the bovine state animal of Arunachal Pradesh), which she sources from her hometown.
The unbroken links with home are the hidden levers of all such lives running in Humayunpur. Bamboo shoots, sticky rice, axone (fermented soybeans), anisi (yam leaves) are the staples of Northeastern cuisine. While some get it from their suppliers such as Brahma and Asha, small trips back home are common to replenish goods or some have their families send them over, as 28-year-old Alo Chophy’s family does. Chophy runs Dear Naga, a Nagamese restaurant that opened a few months ago. It is on the same lane as Arunachali Restaurant.
Welcoming all
Kori’s, a popular Korean food restaurant chain, which opened an outlet in Humyunpur in 2015, is an important employment centre for the Northeasterners. Pranab Das, 26, from Assam, who works as the corporate manager here, says that the Northeastern population of Humayunpur has, in fact, been a big factor in Kori’s expansion. “Most of our initial customers were from the Northeastern communities of Humayunpur and visitors to Delhi from that part of the country on account of their exposure to Korean culture,” he says.Geeta Lepcha’s salon is running on similar goodwill, the goodwill that migrants have for a fellow migrant. This 35-year-old woman from Nepal opened her salon in Humayunpur last year in October. “Fashion is an important part of the Northeastern community. They love to catch up with the new trends, whether it is hair, nails, or personal care. This is why I chose this place for my salon and I feel welcome here,” she says. The clientele patronises her Lashes and Nails Salon as much as it does the neighbouring J&J Salon and Zote Salon.
Harmony now
Amit Phogat, 34, a landlord who has rented his building to many Northeasterners, is now quite adjusted with his tenants—but it has taken time. Phogat’s family lives on the second floor of the same building. “Our family has been living here since 1683. We started renting out buildings in 2005, this benefitted us,” he says, having seen what the migrants have brought in. Initially there may have been verbal arguments and frequent issues of vacancy notices, but he admits that “our village has grown economically because of the Northeastern communities. They have their shops and parlours. It is good for our economic development”.
The problem was mainly cultural. “Their day started after sunset. Their culture is very different from ours and so is the food, the smell is very strong, if they cooked something on the fourth floor, people on the streets could smell it. But now the smell is not there anymore,” he says. Atiqur Rahman, a 28-year-old Nagamese, who had been a Humayunpur resident from 2013, has his take on this: “It is not that the smell is gone from our food, it is just that they have now also gotten used to it.”