Literally "gait" or "movement": the characteristic way material flows — the contour and habit of motion that makes a kaida recognizably Delhi or Ajrada before any attribution is spoken. Two compositions can share bols yet walk differently.
Players also use the word for the idiomatic movement of a tala's theka at tempo, and teachers invoke it when a student plays the right strokes with the wrong motion. Absorbing chalan is slow work: it comes from hearing a lineage's repertoire in bulk, not from any single piece.