Mir Dard Road, behind Maulana Azad Medical College, leads to Mehndian, where are situated the graves of the two great poets and a religious reformer. Khwaja Mir Dard flourished during the reigns of Mohd Shah and Shah Alam (1719-89). He lived near the Barafkhana, west of paharganj, and did not leave his home even during the invasion of Nadir Shah in 1739. He was later persuaded to stay in Kucha Chelan in Daryaganj.

The second personality is Hakim Momin Khan Momin, a contemporary of Mirza Ghalib, who wrote the famous couplet: "Tum mere paas hote ho goya/ Jab doosra aur koi nahin hota. (You, my beloved, are with me/ When nobody else is around). It has now become a film song too. Ghalib was so impressed by it that he is said to have remarked that Momin could take his whole diwan or literary work and give this sher to him. Momin predicted his own end, saying that he would die with his hands and legs broken ("Dast-o-bazu beshikasth"). Believe it or not, he broke them after falling from a ladder while climbing up to the pigeon-loft.

The third prominent person resting in the graveyard is Shah Wallihullah, the leader of the 19th century Wahabi movement.

The name Mendhian was given to the area because there were a lot of the mehndi or henna bushes growing there, which were used for colouring hands, feet and hair, and also for medicinal purposes. Now hardly any of these bushes survive as the place has become a congested locality.

Once there was a move to bulldoze the area but for Ali Sher Mewati, who lay before the bulldozers and eventually got Jawaharlal Nehru to intervene in the matter.

Far from Mehndian there’s a Church Mission Road of the Cathedral Church of the Redemption, close to the Central Secretariat. It is here that the CNI Bishop of Delhi also lives. This cathedral was built when Lutyens planned New Delhi and it became the church which was attended by the Viceroy. Earlier, the Viceroy used to attend Sunday service at St James’s Church in Kashmere Gate, built by Col James Skinner in 1836, a few years before the death.

There’s an older road also, known as Church Mission Road. This one stretches from St Stephen&’s Church right up to its junction with Old Delhi Main Station. The road is part of the overcrowded Fatehpuri area now. Yet at one time it was a landmark of the Church of England Mission, “which owes its origin to the zeal of the congregation of St James’ Church, who raised between 1850 and 1858 the (then) large sum of Rs 30,000 for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith". The society made a further grant of Rs 80,000.

In February 1854, it sent the Rev Jackson and the Rev Hubbard. But even before their arrival, Dr Chimman Lal, Assistant Surgeon, and Master Ramchandar, Professor of Mathematics in Delhi College and tutor to the Maharaja of Patiala, had become Christians. Dr Chimman Lal was murdered during the "Mutiny" of 1857 and his family migrated to Lahore. Another person who migrated there was Chandu Lal, among whose descendants were Arthur Lall, author of the House at Adampur, and India&’s permanent representative to the UN, and his brother John S Lall, the famous ICS officer who became Dewan of Sikkim and later a well-known writer. The famous book on Begum Samru of Sardhana was authored by him. Chandu Lal incidentally was descended from Raja Todar Mal, Akbar’s revenue minister.

Along with Dr Chimman Lal, the Rev Hubbard, D E Sandays and Lewis Roch were also killed in 1857 but the Rev Jackson escaped as he had moved out of Delhi shortly before the "Mutiny" because of ill-health. After two years the Mission, which had been in limbo, restarted its work.

Women members from it, led by Mrs Winter, wife of the Rev B R Winter, had, however, begun visiting neighbouring Hindu and Muslim homes to teach purdah women not only to read and write but also learn lace-making, needlework, sewing and stitching. This came to be known as the Zenana Mission. Children too were drawn into the literacy campaign. A Normal school for Zenana women and 17 primary schools were also started. The Cambridge brotherhood (of missionaries educated at Cambridge) opened 13 prominent Zenana Missions for the education of girls and boys. The wife of Rev James Smith and Fatima, widow of Wilayat Ali, a convert killed in 1857, lent their wholehearted support to this work.

They would, like Mrs Winter, visit the homes of the inhabitants of Fatehpuri with a view to bringing the light of education to them. The residents were relatives of decadent Mughal noblemen and landowners, whose lives had been thrown topsy-turvy by the Mutiny. The trades learnt by their women-folk helped to supplement the family income as lace and embroidery sales and tailoring charges brought in much-needed money

Fatehpuri underwent another upheaval in 1947, when the Partition riots took place and many of the residents went away to Pakistan. Their houses became evacuee property, allotted later to refugees from Sindh and Punjab. Now the area is full of hotels, where people stay after alighting at the Old Delhi Railway Station and resume their journey the next day. These include honeymooners and other pleasure-seekers. T S Eliot&’s lines: "Let us go through certain half-deserted streets/ The muttering retreats of one-night hotels" are quite applicable to the place, where paradoxically, once do-gooder missionaries and a decadent aristocracy evolved a fruitful relationship. Church Mission Road is a silent reminder of that fusion of minds and hearts.

Lothian bridge is named after the engineer, who built the railway bridge over which trains go to and from Delhi Main Station. Near the bridge is Lothian cemetry (now closed to burials) and a Lothian Road too. There are some other roads also named after great personalities, whose names have now been changed. But a number of them, like Nicholson Road and Hudson Road still exist. This is how history is commemorated and cannot bhe erased even if Aurangzeb Road is renamed Abdul Kalam Road.