Elegance taken for granted [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The door itself is small in relation to the sprawling scope of the doorway. The entire entrance is dense with sculpted patterns, including four human figures, plus the mandatory taaks and arches. The sandstone darwaza of Sri Digambar Jain Mandir in Old Delhi’s Dili Gate is striking. This afternoon, its arresting beauty stays unaffected, even as a local biscuit suppler has piled up a fresh stock of brown cardboard cartons right in front of the closed doorway, see photo. Old Delhi is home to numerous remarkable doorways. An aesthete might feel their beauty to be under constant threat because these doorways tend to be taken for granted by Purani Dilli

A Walled City institution. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] When stone is sewn into air, the two elements unite to become a jaali. Such a lattice screen makes a heavy structure look light, as if a strong breeze might lift the structure any moment into the sky. Some of the capital’s most exquisite jaalis lie preserved inside a Walled City school, where they frame the boundary of a centuries-old grave chamber. Delhi’s oldest surviving educational institution, Anglo Arabic Senior Secondary School is a world of red sandstones and lakhori bricks, arched doorways and miniature chhatris. (One door has its wooden exterior etched into flowers.) It was also the subject of a scholarly book published two years ago by Oxford University Press—The

A portal to the village. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Time passes, things change, some things continue to stand. The historic Chirag Delhi village has transformed over the years, many of its old buildings (such beautiful doorways they had!) have disappeared, but this old gateway to the village has survived. This overcast afternoon, the timeworn portal is mutely overlooking a smoggy stream of pedestrians, bikes and autos (see photo). The busy road of the city unspools along the northern perimeter of the village. The inverse side of the gateway faces a life more at leisure—that being a sleepy village lane full of small shops such as Manoj Namkeen Bhandar, Ashok General Store, and JS Tailors. Meanwhile, a young man is stationed

Delhi's weirdest dome. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It looks like icing on the cake. But who licked off more than half of the yummy cream? This is the weirdest dome among all of the Delhi monuments. It tops Rahim’s tomb on Mathura Road. The dome is made of stone and lime mortar, but parts are covered with marble blocks. Actually the dome had no marble in living memory. These white blocks were put up a few years ago during an ambitious conservation project. One wonders if funds dried up, preventing the acquisition of the rest of the marble needed to complete the conservation. A citizen is naturally perturbed for such a significant 17th century monument built by Mughal-era poet Rahim (originally)

"Off with his head." [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Do not be surprised on coming face-to-face with headless ghosts in Hauz Khas. The south Delhi district has a particularly frightful past, and that past is etched in stone. The historic region has many monuments, including the tomb of Emperor Feroz Shah Tughlaq. Two of the monuments are not particularly handsome or well-known or greatly historic, but they are the most unique among all the monuments. For they are dedicated to the head. To the lack of head, actually. 'Off with his head', meaning “chopping off the head,” is a gruesome phrase that famously appeared in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as well as in the plays of Shakespeare. The phrase strongly resonates with

A Mughal landmark. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Looming tall on a traffic circle, outside the Humayun Tomb complex, it is one of Delhi’s most overlooked monuments. The Mathura Road landmark is colloquially known as Neela Gumbad — for neela (blue) tiles adorn the dome. The 16th century building’s actual name of Sabz Burj comes from the sabz (Persian for green) tiles on its neck. Among the earliest Mughal monuments in India — older than even Humayun’s tomb — it has long been believed to be a tomb. Who built it and for whom has remained a mystery. We now have answers never reported before in the news media. Conservation architect Ratish Nanda of Aga Khan Trust for Culture, which executed an

Stones of monsoon. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] A little tap on the window-pane, as though something had struck it, followed by a plentiful light falling sound, as of grains of sand being sprinkled from a window overhead, gradually spreading, intensifying, acquiring a regular rhythm, becoming fluid, sonorous, musical, immeasurable, universal. it is the baarish. The season’s first true rain, yesterday morning, could as well have been penned by Marcel Proust. The top passage is from In Search of Lost Time, Proust’s great multi-volume novel. Once asked how he would spend his last hours on earth if he knew that a great calamity was about to end his life, the French novelist said he would throw himself at the feet of

Of the Walled City. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The season’s first rain puddle has momentarily transformed into a receptacle for Delhi’s history. The dirty water is reflecting the centuries-old Dilli Gate, one of the 14 gateways punctuating the 5.5-mile-long wall of the Walled City of Shahjahanabad. Most of those stone darwazas succumbed to a violent past, along with much of the wall. But you may visit three of the four surviving gateways over a single afternoon. Stringed along Fasil Road, they lie close to each other, their interiors easily discerned from afar. All three are flanked by luscious peepal trees. An arched edifice composed of turrets, niches, battlements, benches and yards, Ajmeri Gate signposted the way to the sufi