There’s no place in Delhi quite like Nizamuddin, and there hasn’t been for some time. Slotted in between its wealthier neighbours in the leafy southern colonies of the city, the basti of Nizamuddin West is a time-machine built from crumbling stone and grimy marble.

It seems the haughty roots of the mighty Mughal tree sank deeper into Nizamuddin than much else the city has to offer.

Built close to 700 years ago around the Dargah (tomb) of revered Sufi Saint Hazrat Nizamuddin, the basti offers a peaked archway into medieval Islamic culture. A self-sustained market village satelliting various tombs, mosques and shrines, the area distils in tradition. Save the odd Airtel cut-out and swinging incandescent bulbs, the place appears resolutely anchored in the past.

Down backlanes and byways of the basti, it’s easy to lose your identity. The place itself seems almost at a loss for its etched-in-stone history, so long has it played host to relentless generations of worshippers, beggars, shopkeeps, muftis, diners, rickshaw wallahs and the odd notable criminal among a horde of less notable ones.

It’s a non-stop Sufi-styled swirling dance of kufi-capped men carrying their shoes in and out of smog-stained shrines. Bedraggled beggars and rootless sages brush shoulders and share tobacconists while fur-patched dogs dodge half-attempted kicks.

The Dargah, the infallible marble heart of the Nizamuddin basti, still beats with a steady flow of devotees. Some make it there to pray on a daily basis, others make a pilgrimage of it. The shrines regularly accommodate the prayers of Sufi Muslims from regions as far afield as Africa, Indonesia and the Balkans.

The complex is administered by the direct descendents of Nizamuddin himself, who have been performing services at the site for a few hundred years shy of a millennium.

Murmurings of the Koran, which is available to pilgrims outside the entrance, fill the halls and courts of the shrine complex. Some believers, in a ceremony to ask favours from God, tie threads to criss-crossing filigreed screens.

On Thursdays and Friday evenings at 7:00pm, qawwali musicians belt out Urdu hymns to the tune of the tabla drum and harmonium, creating an undeniably mystic experience.

Food is no bit player in the Nizamuddin experience. Mughal cooking here is at its most unrefined and traditional, befitting the overall venue itself. During the four and a half centuries of Sultan rule, those gifted in culinary pursuits have mastered dishes that pay homage today to their ancestral creators.

Among the uncountable eat-ins and coal-cooked meat vendors, there is an outpost of Delhi’s famous Karim’s restaurant. The true seeker, however, would prefer to feast at a local diner, where the restaurant title has long been concealed by coal smoke centimetres deep.

Aap Ti Katir, a particularly rare find for Delhi, offers kakori paratha kebabs that remain unrivalled outside of Lucknow.

Nizamuddin is one of just a handful of all-night action spots in a city of millions. The basti’s commuters are Delhi’s 24 hour party people, perhaps not in the traditional sense, but maybe in the very traditional sense at least.

Feel like a night-cap chai? Swing on by and share a beedi with a toothless fellow nightowl at Delhi’s original after-dark retreat.