Model town market — Jalandhar’s evolving legacy

Jalandhar, in the late 1980s, was a warm, unhurried and a delightfully predictable place. For most teenagers or youngsters, a geri ride to the famed Model Town market was the highlight of the day, with familiar faces nodding at each other atop scooters and Marutis.

The market has expanded manifold now, but many shops of that era have stayed put, as quiet champions of relevance!

The shopkeeper ‘uncle’ at Modern store and book depot still knows your stationery needs even before you walk in.

Mahajan store, a toy shop, with the two genial brothers who would proudly show us dolls and Hot Wheels cars, still continues to be every child’s wonderland.

Chache Di Hatti is no longer a small, colourful, chaotic shop selling threads, laces, buttons, etc, where salesmen skilfully hunted down the tiniest of knick-knacks demanded by customers, but a two-storey glitzy store now stocking up heaps of trendy fabrics!

Greeters’ Junction, once lined wall to wall with greeting cards and curios, now boasts of a basement too.

And Kankutra Chusta… Still disapproved by parents, still devoured with glee!

These shops are the living proof that legacy means knowing when to stay the same and when to evolve.

Randeep Dhillon Mand, Jalandhar