When we entered a hovel in Katputli Colony, a slum area whose narrow lanes are strewn with garbage and where the air is filled with the stink of open drains, the last thing we expected was to be served a musk-melon cut so stylishly it could adorn the table of a five-star restaurant or the cover of a culinary book. It was cut in the shape of a bowl, with neat seesaw edges. Inside the bowl were toffee-size chunks of melon. When we visited the colony, Guillaume Carrignon, who served us this delight, had already been staying for a week at the shack of Ishamuddin, a magician with a large family, who lives in Katputli Colony—the sprawling abode of puppeteers, acrobats, magicians and snake charmers. Carrignon helps Ishamuddin’s wife Babita do the dishes, makes paneer sandwich for dinner and plays carrom with their children.

The 25-year-old student of education at France’s University Picardie Julus Verne, who is visiting India with his 26-year-old Polish classmate Mishka Bedryjcuk, was earlier putting up at a rented place in New Friends Colony where Bedryjcuk was interning with an NGO for a thesis she’s writing on peace and education. After she completed her stint there, she and Carrignon lost no time shifting to Katputli Colony. “Before visiting India, an Irish musician friend of mine suggested I stay in this colony,” says Bedryjcuk, who could not find any accommodation there on the Internet. So, when the two arrived in Delhi two months back, they stayed at a guest house in Tibetan Colony and then moved to New Friends Colony. Then, Bedryjcuk got Ishamuddin’s number from an NGO worker. Soon she and Carrignon visited Katputli Colony. Over cups of masala chai, Bedryjcuk talked of her love for music, Carrignon spoke of his passion for juggling and Ishamuddin recounted how he performed his famed rope trick under the Eiffel Tower in 1997. And they became friends.

... contd.