A friendly neighbourhood grocer, a famous shawarma joint — and some gossip: In Delhi’s upscale New Friends Colony, CC Market has it all

And at the centre of it all stands the Community Centre Market — more colloquially called the CC Market — as the neighbourhood’s social anchor.

The first housing society to come up in the area was set up by Ram Lal Jaggi, a businessman who settled in Delhi after Partition. He had bought plots of land from villagers who lived on the banks of the Yamuna, so that the area could be developed into a residential area.

“The New Friends Colony Cooperative House Building Society was set up by him. It was the mother unit of the colony,” says Arun Jaggi, who is a descendant of the businessman and serves as the General Secretary of the society today.

“He bought the land from the villagers and then sold it to Delhi Development Authority (DDA) under the Bombay Act. The land was then leased back to him,” says Arun.

According to him, Ram Lal’s vision was to create a place where refugees from his community could settle with their families while preserving a strong sense of belonging.

Another veteran of the marketplace is M Z Beg, the owner of Al-Bake, which he claims to is the first Shawarma shop of Delhi. (Express photo by Praveen Khanna)

While the first plots were purchased in 1958, the Society was formally established in 1960, and land allotment followed in the years after.

Urban planner Chitra S Jain notes in her paper, Emerging Role of RWAs, that “the registration of plots began in 1972 and the first residences were built soon after”.

Urban planners must have realised that those who would move into these newly allotted houses also needed a space that would provide them goods and services to run those households. And so, the DDA decided to build a small shopping complex near the first few houses.

Gurcharan Singh, 73, was one of the first shopkeepers to seize the opportunity. Born and brought up in Sriniwaspuri shortly after his parents migrated to Delhi because of the Partition, Singh had grown up watching his father set up his own grocery shop.

He and his younger brother, Om Prakash, would help their father run the shops. In the early 1970s — Singh doesn’t remember exactly when — he and his brother set up a small grocery shop, called Jai Mata General Store, on the opposite side of where the NFC CC Market now stands.

“Back then there were only jhuggis here… Yahaan pe pehle eethon ka bhatta hua karta tha, aur jo bhi wahaan kaam karte they jhuggiyon mein rehte the (There used to be a brick kiln here and those who worked there lived in those shanties),” says the wizened old man.

His son, who cannot hear or speak, helps him run the shop now. Over the years, Singh also gradually lost his hearing.

Shopping at his shop now entails a complex song-and-dance routine of miming what you want while yelling at the top of your voice until Singh can decipher what you’re asking for. Yet his shop has remained a beloved part of the market, with regulars popping in from time to time.

Back when the two brothers had heard of a shopping complex opening, they jumped at the opportunity. “We collected money from all the friends and relatives we knew for the DDA auction,” said Singh. However, Singh’s father objected. He wasn’t sure whether anything could be set up there, let alone flourish.

“You know, it was so bad back then that forget electricity, even the suppliers wouldn’t come to this side of town. There used to be dacoits here, too, who would rob the truck drivers,” said Singh. Where Mathura Road is now jam-packed with cars, Singh recalled, used to be a narrow mud road that scarcely saw any traffic.

Despite their father’s objections, Singh and his brother scrounged up the money and received a small shop space for themselves. The hole-in-the-wall shop is stacked from floor to ceiling with provisions, leaving a small route around the island-like refrigerator in the middle of his shop.

It was one of the first eight shops to open in the shopping complex, which later expanded to 36 stores selling clothes, food and provisions.

The jhuggi dwellers slowly left as the area developed further. “This whole area used to once be the banks of the Yamuna… later, when people started constructing buildings here, they would dig five to ten feet before hitting water,” said Singh.

Soon after their shop opened, the Emergency was declared. Not wanting to lose their business so soon after inaugurating it, Singh and his brother fixed up a mic and speaker to their goods tempo on which they would generally bring their shop’s supplies.

“We would take rounds of all the kothis here… the kothi-wallahs really appreciated us for doing this because back then, everyone was too scared to step out. Even we would open the shop for two hours and then pull down the shutter… this place was still so empty and desolate,” said Singh.

Singh’s shop soon became a necessity for the people living in New Friends Colony. When Singh and his brother began delivering groceries to the mansions in the locality, they would also gather tidbits of gossip and trivia about the glamorous lives being lived behind those doors.

“Mohan Singh — arey, you know, the one who owned Campa Cola — used to host a kirtan every Friday at their place. I would expect the call to my shop every Thursday for ordering snacks. Then Rajan Nanda’s missus (chairman and MD of Escorts Group) knew Dara Shikoh’s carpenter… got all her furniture made by them… Back then, all the cinema owners used to live here and they used to party like crazy too! And for their supply of soda, soft drinks and snacks, we were there,” said Singh grinning widely.

Another veteran of the marketplace is M Z Beg, the owner of Al-Bake, which he claims to is the first Shawarma shop of Delhi. While Beg opened his now legendary eatery in 2000, he had lived in Batla House all his life.

“Back then, this place used to be called a khadda, a hole, because during the monsoons, a lake would form here… and of course, it was thickly forested, no one used to venture out here,” said Beg.

Beg would move to Saudi Arabia in the 90s, working for a “goron ka canteen” where he learned how to cook Arabic delicacies. One of the things he learned was making the Shawarma and, most importantly, operating the vertical rotisserie used to cook the meat for the dish.

On a six-month-long visit back home, Beg was informed that the DDA was holding auctions for shop spaces. Feeling flush with the money he made abroad and itching for an opportunity to stay back home, Beg decided to throw his hat in the ring. He bought a tiny 7×9 feet space for Rs 1 lakh to set up his rotisserie.

“I called it Shawarma Centre first, but as I kept expanding the shop, I renamed it Al-Bake,” says Beg.

Incredibly, both shops survived the pandemic – Beg’s because of the boom of online deliveries and Singh’s out of pure grit.

But Singh’s light is dimming and he doesn’t have much strength left. He says, “With these online deliveries, I’ve almost reached the end… I’m old too and can’t keep working. But my father used to say, ‘Rate aur weight sahi rakho, baaki bhagwaan dekh lega (Keep the rate and weight of your goods right and everything will work out)’. Bhagwaan ki kripa hai ki hum abhi bhi yahi hai. Humari dukaan aaj bhi chalti hai (It is God’s will that I’m here and the shop still runs).”

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