India, July 17 -- Although it was mashoor for sohan halwa, the sweetshop's boondi laddu would reach closest to perfection. Each round piece topped with a single melon seed, the little laddu would dissolve the instant it was tossed into the mouth.

Old Delhi's Ghantewala Confectioners had been a Chandni Chowk landmark since 1790. It closed its shutters in 2015. The space wasn't orphaned. It changed into a cloth shop. A few years later, the cloth shop closed too. The space shuffled back into a sweetshop-reverting into. the same Ghantewala!

The sustained presence of a culinary landmark, its eventual closure, followed by its re-emergence, is a tribute to old Chandni Chowk. But like it or not, this old area is more new than old. The Mughal-er...