Quiet pocket of Old Delhi
A little-known enclave in the walled city, Katra Nizam ul Mulk, is being singled out for preserving traditional houses while much of Delhi modernises — it’s a rare patch that hasn’t been flattened into apartment blocks. The Hindustan Times profile notes the neighbourhood’s older residential texture and frames it as evidence that some Old Delhi pockets are being valued for continuity rather than replacement (hindustantimes.com).
In one lane behind Jama Masjid, Old Delhi still looks like a place where families built houses for themselves, not a place where builders stacked flats for sale. Hindustan Times on April 11, 2026 singled out Katra Nizam ul Mulk as a pocket where traditional homes have survived while much of Delhi has been remade. (hindustantimes.com) The report describes long walled alleys painted blue, green, grey, and white, with curling paint and old residential facades instead of the glass, tile, and concrete fronts that now dominate many other neighborhoods. That detail matters because Old Delhi usually reaches the news through traffic, markets, and crowding, not through intact domestic streets. (hindustantimes.com) “Katra” itself tells you what kind of place this is. In Shahjahanabad, the Mughal walled city founded in 1648, katras were enclosed residential or trading clusters tucked inside the larger urban maze, more like compounds or gated courtyards than modern city blocks. (wikipedia.org, shahjahanabad.eheritageproject.in) Katra Nizam ul Mulk sits near Urdu Bazar and Jama Masjid, and heritage listings record buildings there at property numbers including 4195 and 4115. That is a clue that this is not just a poetic idea of “old Delhi,” but a mapped and documented built fabric with individual structures worth tracking. (indianheritagesites.in, indianheritagesites.in) The enclave also carries older layers of use. The Shahjahanabad heritage project says Katra Nizam-ul-Mulk was named after a family of Nizams of Hyderabad and later became known for Munshi Zahur-ul-Hasan’s “qomi press” before a fish market took over the area. (shahjahanabad.eheritageproject.in) That mix of residence, trade, religion, and print is how much of Old Delhi was built to work. A lane could sit next to a mosque, a market, and a press, with people living above or behind the commerce instead of being zoned into separate boxes the way newer parts of Delhi often are. (shahjahanabad.eheritageproject.in, wikipedia.org) The backdrop to this story is that Delhi is again talking about “reviving” Shahjahanabad. In February 2026, the city government said it wanted a comprehensive plan for the Walled City and to reconstitute the Shahjahanabad Redevelopment Corporation to restore heritage while upgrading infrastructure. (hindustantimes.com, economictimes.indiatimes.com) That makes Katra Nizam ul Mulk a useful test case. If redevelopment in Old Delhi means only cleaner paving, buried wires, and more tourism, the city can end up looking tidier but flatter; if it keeps lanes where old houses still define the street, it preserves the part of Shahjahanabad that was built for everyday life. (hindustantimes.com, hindustantimes.com) That is why a quiet alley made the paper. In a city where “improvement” often means demolition first and explanation later, Katra Nizam ul Mulk is being noticed for the opposite reason: it is still standing in the older shape of the city. (hindustantimes.com)
