Shops and shopkeepers also leave behind vivid memories despite Majrooh Sultanpuri’s assertion: “Bazar se nikla hoon kharidar nahin hoon. (I may be passing by the market but am not a buyer)”. Even so, one remembers that Matto Mal had a signboard proclaiming the qualities of Sunlight soap at his shop in the old quarter.

The product is hardly seen in the market now but 65 years ago, it was the in-thing. Matto had a fine array of gole topis made of felt, which were worn then (and earlier too) by the middle-aged. He also had an assortment of extravagant items, not available at any other shop, and was regarded as a merchant (a term which made him look like a romantic character in a fairy-tale to kids reading about the Merchant of Venice and the ones in the Arabian Nights).

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Matto’s elder brother Satto was a grain merchant and younger sibling, Atto, his cheek always bulging with a paan, a dealer in merchandise, who also was a pawn-broker for jewellery-owning women in distress. Now all three are dead and their children run a number of shops where one looks in vain for yesteryear items. They sell modern stuff and don’t regard themselves as merchants but businessmen.

Summer Chand Jain, whose shop was not far from that of Matoo Mal’s, was a sweet seller. One went there to buy sweets on birthdays, other anniversaries, engagements and weddings. Of course, children visited the shop every morning to buy a “dauna” (paper cup) of delicious suji halwa, puri and potato subzi. In the evening boys returning from school would stop to buy four annas worth of small barfi, which was very tasty. Summer Chand passed away long ago and his shop is now a computer cafe.

Mota Doodhwalla stayed bare-chested almost throughout the year. One had the feeling that he never bathed and, when he was not dishing out watery dahi or filling up cans of milk, he would fall off to sleep, his big tummy heaving up and down as though it would burst at any moment.

The gossip among kids was that it had a store of Mani (the same that is believed to be in the King Cobra’s head). If roused from slumber by those wanting to slake their thirst with lassi on a hot afternoon, he would let out a nasty belch and stir the old copper pot to prepare it from a miserly mixture of curds, milk, sugar and ice. His shop was demolished and a doctor’s clinic has come up in its place. So, markets too keep changing with the times.