Karol Bagh or Qarol Bagh?

If you watched any bollywood movies or OTT series, chances are that you are familiar with the name of a highly popular market called Karol Bagh in Central Delhi.

What you may not be aware is that that the term 'Karol' term comes from an Urdu term قرول, (क़रोल) which means "curved like a green chili" and 'bagh'  ب (बाग़) as you may be aware means garden.

The area was named for its numerous herbal gardens (or orchards) in the pre-urban era. The bent fields or garden layouts gave the locality its distinctive descriptor in surveys.

Over time, the pronunciation shifted from Qarol Bagh to the more common Karol Bagh in everyday use.

The area was originally a semi-rural stretch on the western edge of Old Delhi, with gardens, fields, and villages like Madhoganj, Jaisingh Pura, and others. 

As obvious from the names, the original names like Madho and Jaisingh had nothing to do with 'Qarol' but such is our whole history.

Yet, by some accounts, before Hindustan was handed out of Bharat by India in 1947, it was largely a Muslim-majority area. 

After Partition, many refugees (especially from West Punjab) settled here, turning it into a hub for small businesses and commerce.

Qarol Bagh also hosts a 5 acre park namely Ajmal Khan Park dedicated to Hakim Ajmal Khan (1864–1927)  also known as Masih-ul-Mulk ("Healer of the Nation") who belonged to the Khandan-e-Sharifi (Sharifi family), a lineage of Unani physicians tracing back to the Mughal era (arriving with Emperor Babur). His grandfather, Hakim Sharif Khan, served as physician to Mughal Emperor Shah Alam.

Pre-mughal and british villages like Madhoganj, Jaisingh Pura among many others have disappeared from the face of this earth like countless others in the name of secularism and modernization.

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