India, June 7 -- The cramped street is marooned in afternoon quietude. All the house doors are shut. Old Delhi's Chhatta Aaga Jaan appears to have only a single non-residential establishment, named Best Tailors. Its shutters are open. Tailor Zaid is busy over a piece of light-blue cloth, making a pair of pants. He is simultaneously discoursing on the street-name. "Begum Aaga Jaan must have been a lady from some hi-fi family living in this lane in the era of badshahs," he mutters, a long inch tape garlanded round his neck. "Now nobody knows anything of her.or her husband."

The shop floor behind Zaid is littered with scraps and shreds of many coloured clothes. One of the sewing machines is half-buried under piles of fabrics. The tiny TV in...