Roses were Red

While Delhi sleeps, they take over small parts of the city. They are not criminals, they are flower sellers. And the government is banishing the latter from the city.

In the day, the Hanuman Mandir area in the heart of Delhi is the very face of urban chaos—dusty sidewalks dotted with beggars, tiny bylanes where autos and pedestrians jostle for space, a cacophony of sounds emanating from the adjoining roads leading to Connaught Place. But you have to visit this landmark at dawn to witness the magic that unfurls here. As the first rays of sunshine warm the city, the sidewalks in front of Hanuman Mandir turn into a carpet of blooms. Streets, which were lined with fume-spewing vehicles, become the playground of flaming marigolds, exotic orchids and vibrant gerberas. 

This mandi, which happens to be India’s largest flower market, has been adding colour to Baba Kharak Singh Marg for the past 16 years now. The market is known for its unique flash-in-the-pan existence, as it operates only between 4 and 9 in the morning and then vanishes as soon as office hours begin. However, it will soon be a thing of the past, as will be the iconic flower mandis of Mehrauli and Chandni Chowk. 

Claiming that these markets are on public land and that their existence is unauthorised, the Delhi government plans to shift them to a single-unit flower market in Ghazipur, located on the outskirts of the city. “Why can’t you legalise these markets? After all, they are only adding to the beauty of the place. My question is, why is the Delhi government trying to homogenise the city?” asks Himanshu Verma, director of Red Earth, an organisation that engages with visual and performing arts. He has started a campaign to address the right to livelihood and issues of displacement plaguing the people who work in these mandis. “If you go to Ghazipur, you will notice that at present there is no building which has been allocated for the flower market. It is sad that blooms will be sharing space with the meat and flies,” he adds.

The relocation of these mandis has not just incensed citizens of Delhi but the international community as well. Artists from across the globe have joined hands with Himanshu in his endeavour to save these markets. Amsterdam-based artist Simon Ferdinando has proposed the setting up of a protest in the flower city of Amsterdam where bloom sellers will hold placards saying, ‘Save the Flower Markets of Delhi’. Several such initiatives are underway. However, none of these can quell the anger of people who work in these mandis. “Who will burn so much petrol and travel such a long distance to the outskirts of the city to buy flowers? Soon, there will be middlemen in the form of suppliers. Here we do business worth Rs 1 crore daily, but in Ghazipur we will earn less,” says Vinod Tomar, one of the major sellers in the Baba Kharak Singh Marg market. 

According to the sellers, there is no commodity more perishable and fragile than flowers. Since the structure in Ghazipur has not yet come up, much needed cold storage facilities will be missing. This will just make the business more risky, thus reducing unsold flowers to a pile of rubbish by the second or third day. Many also feel that the economics of their existence could change as a result of this move. “I live in Saket. I will have to shift my entire economic structure if I shift somewhere closer to the mandi. Who knows, the government may later change its mind and shift the mandi somewhere else. How many times will I uproot my family?” asks Manoj Bhagra of Floral Solutions, who is one of the biggest sellers of flowers in Delhi.

For a lot of people, the relocation of mandis will bring forth the issue of displacement and loss of livelihood as well. The ones working in the Chandni Chowk flower market have been residing in Old Delhi for generations now. The move to Ghazipur would mean displacing their families from their ancestral homes and looking for a more expensive accommodation on the outskirts. “Also, the new mandi will accommodate only those who have a licence. Here, out of 1,000 people, only 50 have it. To get one made, one has to pay Rs 50,000. How will a poor man like me manage?” asks Ram Prasad Yadav, who has been selling flowers in Old Delhi for the past 20 years now.   

Each of the three markets—located in Baba Kharak Singh Mark, Mehrauli and Chandni Chowk—has a distinct and unique character, which will be lost once they are relocated to a single place outside Delhi. Take the mandi in Chandni Chowk, for instance. Established some 70 or 80 years ago, the streets outside Fatehpuri Masjid in Old Delhi come alive with cheerful yellow and orange marigolds early in the morning. 

While the mandi outside the old Fatehpuri Manzil disappears at 9 am, the one within the building is open 24 hours. As one climbs up the dark stairway to reach the first floor of the Manzil, it feels like stepping into antiquity. From within this old structure, buyers and sellers go about their business good naturedly. The atmosphere is nothing short of a stock market, with prices of flowers appreciating and depreciating with every passing moment. As cheerful negotiations over price and quantity go on all day, accountants bend over their ledgers to keep a minute-by-minute record of the transactions. The earnings are quickly transferred into mini sandukchis (cash boxes), which have probably been in operation since the market started. “It has been a family profession for most people who work here. They all sit in the same place where their father or forefathers used to sit. In fact, this mandi is so old that it used to supply flowers to the British Army cantonment in Delhi,” says Manoj who has been managing the mandi for the past several years now. 

Just like the Fatehpuri Manzil market, the atmosphere in the Mehrauli bazaar, located on the city’s southern fringe, is frenetic and full of buzz. Trucks laden with sweet-smelling Dutch roses, lilies, carnations and chrysanthemums can be seen pouring their wares into the mandi. For the past 15 years, the usual crowd of commissioning agents, wholesalers and event planners have thronged to this mandi and returned with armfuls of the freshest and cheapest blooms available in the city. When it first opened in 1994, as a State initiative to cluster flower wholesaling, not even a quintal was sold per day. Today, nearly 1.2 million kg of flowers are sold annually. “Nearly 700 to 800 people work in this mandi. We get clients from all over India, including wedding decorators, government officials, event managers and locals from Delhi/NCR. Flowers add beauty and colour to a city. By shifting the mandi to the outskirts, you are taking the vitality out of Delhi,” sighs Devendra Prasad, treasurer at the Mehrauli mandi.

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