A Village Strikes Gold And Becomes A Happening Place

When problems can be made into opportunities to create happiness

The background history of Champa Gali

A village adjoining a posh area in Delhi (India) strikes gold by becoming a happening place.

No one looked at this village near The Garden Of Five Senses and A big green park called the Indian park. The roads were rickety. People were poor and lived in one small room.

One room housed between five to seven people with a sharing bathroom between three rooms which means at least 15 people shared a bathroom. This was village Saiduljaab.

It had cow sheds, furniture workshops, and design houses as the place was reasonable to rent out compared to the urban posh areas.

This has now become a Parisian passageway with cafes, design studios, a reading room, and a handicraft shop. It is a secret place and not many people know about it.

The people who lived there were almost hungry and then one person who lived there decided to give up his room for rent and to go further away and stay there. The difference in rent would pay for his food.

The passageway is called Champa Gali, and not many people would have heard of it in Delhi. It is called Delhi’s best-kept secret.

Jiten Suchede was the first person to start his office and then a cafe two years ago. Many people who visited him loved the vibes of the place, and some decided to have their own space here.

Champa Gali is not a planned place. It evolved without any effort.

Facebook and Instagram have been projecting Champa Gali. It is pretty photogenic, with hanging trees on its walls, the artistic signages. It is a rustic street in the lanes of Saidulajab, reviving old sheds into a place filled with the life of art, culture, design, chai & coffee.”

As for the name, Jatin Suchede says that they decided to call it Champa Gali after Blue Tokai, a cafe with an on-site roastery that brought in a lot of Champa plants. ( A tree flowering the Indian Champa flower.)

Matt Chittaranjan, who is the co-founder, of Blue Tokai, was born in the US to an Indian father and American mother, liked the place due to its quaint, rustic charm. He has a cafe and a hall for party events.

It has such lovely, rural vibes. We saw young executives, older ladies and gentlemen, children over there, and artists too..

No alcohol is served in any of the cafes. Champa Gali is a completely non-alcoholic place,

Until the 1990s, there was nothing but agricultural fields in the village. The English-sounding Westend Marg was a narrow slushy track along with the agricultural fields where you could only see tractors, bullock carts, and cows.

A few people opened offices in the early 2000s. but with better connectivity through the Metro in Saket in 2010, this village completely changed..

The property agent Mr. Kuldeep has an office there and has a never-ending demand for renting a place over there to open a cafe or an office..

In the past few years, the village Saidulajab has become a happening destination for start-ups to open their offices.

My visit to Champa Gali

Two of my friends wanted to visit Champa Gali with me. So we decided to go. The day was hot. Having entered the village we were shown a place where we could park our car safely.

As we entered after parking the car, we saw Majnu Ka Thela! ( in English Lover’s cart)It looked like a shack. This was a tea or coffee place and looked like a rustic place. The owner allowed us to take some pictures of the shack.

Then we saw a place with a lot of colorful flags and colored buntings. We heard from people that it was a very happening place and everyone wants to get a picture of theirs taken over there.

It was full of people and it was extremely difficult to request people to give us a chance to take photographs over there. I liked the little hanging baskets on top of the buntings and artifact-looking traditional lights. This was the famous Baari Cafe.

The next we found ourselves at the dream catchers. The flowers were beautifully decorated. They were cleaning the place and the worker was oblivious to the fact that there were visitors. He kept using a hose almost to shoo us off that place.

This was the place where influencers had their parties. It looked like a fun place with music and flowers decorated everywhere.

The person at the reception looked at me curiously and I told her that we just wanted to see the place though we may not have lunch there. It was quite a beautiful place with a roof cafeteria at night.

I wanted to stay there, it was so inviting but the others wanted to see more places. People at each cafe were keen to show us their place.

Then we saw an electrical substation with a painting of flowers on it. This was so attractive.

We were told by everyone that Jugmug Thela( In English Twinkling Cart) looked like a train compartment. We sat there to have lunch. It was full of young people. Some of them were on their laptops doing office work.

The food was excellent. We had fried momos, pasta, cheese toast, and some mocktails. We came out satisfied but wanted to come back yet again to this very trendy rustic-looking place again.

While leaving the village an usher stood at the door of a cafe, beckoning us to enter and see the restaurant before we leave. They were luring us to take a few pictures also. The name of this place was ‘Hello beautiful’

We decided that this was enough for the day and we would come back to this place again. However, moving out, one more cafe owner insisted that we see his place and come there on our next visit.

The Liberty Village had music and was encouraging people to tap and join in the fun.

What a lovely day. We were delighted to spend a day full of fun and also something that enriched our lives by learning something new. There were many more cafes to be explored on our next visit.

Learnings of the day

We are surrounded by problems in our lives. Sometimes we do not have anyone to help us and we feel sad. I usually feel when problems arise to look for opportunities by hoping that things will be fine and taking action.

The village folk changed the tide in their favor by making a change from a rickety old village where no one looked and we saw only owls, spiders, cows, goats, and poor people to a happening place for international and national travelers.

To wrap up

Next time you are visiting Delhi, do go to the village Saiduljaab and have fun and merge with the crowd. It is a fun place where villagers took the opportunity to rent out their places and become rich. The village has indeed struck gold.

©Dr. Preeti Singh, 2022.

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