Five kilometres from Bengali Market is another containment zone, this one yet to be de-sealed. It is a season of festivities and Nizamuddin basti should have been gorging on falooda, jalebi, rabdi and piles of deep-fried sevaiya. Nizamuddin dargah, a symbol of the syncretic culture of the city, and the tomb of Humayun across the road, should have been drowning in a sea of tourists and locals this time of the year. But as luck would have it, the neighbourhood is not only celebrating—for want of a better word—a lean Ramzan, the very fabric of community life here has visibly frayed. With the basti emerging as the source of the biggest cluster of Covid-19 cases in India, residents remain prisoners inside their homes. Many continue to struggle to put on the plate, says Rashid Saddique, a heritage tour guide. "They have been issued ration but they need to go to a chakki to get the wheat ground, and even this is not possible. Those who can afford to buy food, can't go out. Deliveries, too, are banned." At the ration shop, a mere mention of their neighbourhood is cause for alarm. "We are asked to stand aside, take whatever is given. It is humiliating." The Nizamuddin cluster resulted from an ill-fated meeting of the Tablighi Jamaat, a movement that calls for a return to the practice of Islam as it was under the Prophet. "People don't seem to know that the mosque where the congregation took place is not the Nizamuddin dargah, but another place of worship. Mahaul bahut bigad gaya hai [The situation has worsened.]," says the 32-year-old who earns a living leading Indian and foreign tourists through the reticulated maze of the basti introducing them to the Sufism of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and pointing out the grave of Mirza Ghalib.

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