The door itself is small, in comparison to the sprawling doorway. The entire entrance is filled with sculpted patterns, including four human figures, plus 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 left a bunch 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 wale.
They are often treated with the rough simplicity of a child who will innocently play with a collector’s piece with no more care than if it were a plastic doll. The Walled City’s most picture-perfect door, though, is not in Gali Naughara, celebrated for its old houses and doorways, but in Gali Badliyan. The entrance to a private house, the darwaza is extremely narrow and extremely tall.
The entire surface is sculpted into legends and stories. One pane shows a hatted hunter aiming his gun towards a lion, who is chasing a poor deer. Another pane shows a vase filled with flowers, the stalks disproportionately tall compared to the vase.
The panes at the bottom teem with parrots. Then there is the appropriately named Gali Lal Darwaza with its many gracious-looking darwazas. The lane was recently visited on these pages.
But it is nearby Gali Arya Sa.