Delhi is a city where water and wealth, shrines and mansions, each tell their own tale of survival. On one side lies Hauz Khas, a medieval reservoir and tomb complex that fed a kingdom’s thirst with brilliant engineering. On the other hand, nestled in the bustling lanes of Chandni Chowk, stands Chunnamal Haveli, a towering reminder of 19th-century mercantile glory.
Where Hauz Khas represented public provision, Chunnamal Haveli embodied private riches, rising on the shoulders of trade, shrewdness, and resilience in colonial times. The mansion is not only a monument of wealth but also a story of Delhi’s transformation from a Mughal capital to a colonial marketplace. Unlike most heritage structures, it is still inhabited by descendants of its founder, offering a rare chance to witness history not as a museum but as a living tradition.
The Story of Chunnamal Haveli’s Rise
The roots of Chunnamal Haveli reach back to 1848, when Rai Lala Chunnamal, a wealthy trader of silks, brocades, and shawls, commissioned its construction. As Mughal rule weakened and the British consolidated power, Chunnamal rose as Delhi’s most prosperous merchant, especially after the Revolt of 1857. His fortune grew so immense that he reportedly lent money to Bahadur Shah Zafar himself and supplied both Mughal royalty and British officers.
Elected to the Municipal Council in 1862, he became a key figure of social influence. The haveli, spread across an acre, contained nearly 150 rooms, designed with lakhori bricks, courtyards, cast-iron balconies, and winding staircases. It reflected both grandeur and adaptability, serving as a family home, a centre of social gatherings, and later as a landmark of civic pride. Its rise was not merely architectural but symbolic of a new class of Indian elite who thrived by balancing tradition and modernity.
Humanity, Heritage, and Unlikely Kindness
Amidst his wealth, Lala Chunnamal showed a gesture that etched his name into Delhi’s moral memory. After the 1857 Revolt, when the British expelled Muslims and auctioned the Fatehpuri Masjid, Chunnamal bought the mosque but refused to demolish it. Instead, he preserved it, locked away until restrictions eased. In 1877, he returned it to the community in exchange for four villages. This act, rare in those vengeful times, reflected both pragmatism and compassion.
Even Mirza Ghalib, the poet of sorrow, remarked on the mansion’s brilliance that survived while so much around it fell to ruin. Over the years, the haveli welcomed leaders and dignitaries, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, visiting Viceroys, and later, artists and filmmakers. Thus, Chunnamal Haveli is remembered not just as a seat of affluence but as a space where humanity and history intertwined.
Living Traditions: Indo-Western Luxury and Daily Life
Inside its walls, Chunnamal Haveli was a tapestry of Indo-Western taste. Belgian mirrors reflected Osler chandeliers; European clocks ticked beside Sindhi tiles and gold-plated stucco. Ballrooms hosted mehfils where tawaifs performed, while women of the household watched unseen behind bamboo screens. Courtyards rang with music and gossip, carried by washerwomen and barbers between inner and outer quarters. Even as time passed, the haveli adapted.
By the 1970s, its ground floor had been rented to shops, but the family continued to live upstairs, maintaining the link between past and present. The neighbourhood, Katra Neel, was itself a stage of brocade trade, nationalist protests, and legendary kite fights, embedding the haveli in the pulse of Delhi’s daily life. Here, grandeur coexisted with routine, proving that heritage could breathe alongside change rather than fossilise in museums.
Hauz Khas Stepwell and Chunnamal Haveli’s Water Heritage
Though Hauz Khas and Chunnamal Haveli are centuries and miles apart, both embody Delhi’s layered water story. The medieval baoli of Hauz Khas served Alauddin Khilji’s city of Siri, while Shahjahanabad, where the haveli stands, relied on Yamuna-fed canals and wells engineered by the Mughals. There is no evidence of direct hydraulic links between the two, yet they represent the continuity of Delhi’s ingenuity with water. Hauz Khas symbolised collective provision, while Chunnamal Haveli reflected elite adaptation, its courtyards likely supplied by wells and nearby canal channels. Together, they show how Delhi’s survival has always depended on balancing community needs with individual prosperity, and how both kings and merchants invested in water as a source of power and prestige.
Key Dates and Additions in the Haveli’s Growth
The haveli’s core was built in 1848, as recorded in an inscription in its drawing room. By 1864, expansions added spiral staircases, cast-iron balconies, and richly decorated interiors. These reflected not only the family’s rising fortune but also their embrace of modern aesthetics in an age of transition. The 20th century brought new adaptations: from 1971, the ground floor became a commercial arcade while upper floors remained private.
This continuity of occupation, across nearly two centuries, makes Chunnamal Haveli unique among Old Delhi’s havelis, most of which crumbled or were sold away. Its construction history is thus more than a timeline; it mirrors the resilience of a family and the adaptability of a city constantly shifting under political and cultural winds.
Chunnamal Haveli in Today’s Urban Rhythm
In the restless heart of Old Delhi, where the lanes of Chandni Chowk echo with the clang of shop shutters and the cries of hawkers, Chunnamal Haveli stands like an island of endurance. Unlike many other havelis that fell into ruin, it has remained within the family for ten generations, a feat that in itself makes it remarkable.
Its balconies are still open to the endless parade of processions, kite-flying duels, and wedding bands that march down the street, keeping alive the sense that the mansion breathes with the city rather than stands apart from it. The descendants of Lala Chunnamal continue to occupy the upper floors, preserving family rituals, memories, and objects that trace Delhi’s transformation from Mughal grandeur to British rule and, later, independence. The ground floor, leased to traders since the 1970s, has fused the past with commerce, a curious coexistence that allows the haveli to fund its own survival without waiting for state intervention.
Visitors who come for heritage walks or film shoots find themselves not in a museum but in a lived space, where walls stained by time coexist with the sound of present-day chatter. The haveli provokes questions that Delhi often forgets to ask: Should heritage only be frozen in display, or can it be carried forward as a rhythm of daily life? Its survival suggests that continuity, not mere conservation, is the true strength of a city’s memory. In every corner of Chunnamal Haveli lies a reminder: a city is not only steel, glass, and highways, but also courtyards, conversations, and legacies that bind the present to the past.
Also Read: Bhardwaj Lake: Hidden Gem of Delhi-Faridabad
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