The beautiful door is gone

A dispatch on the constantly altering city

- Mayank Austen Soofi

Ignorance can be kind, for sometimes there is no comfort in the truth. This piece of news unfolded some time ago, but without catching the notice of the world. The lingering ignorance kept a thing alive that was no longer alive.

It was among Delhi's most beautiful doors. See right photo—snapped four years ago.

The door is gone.

The door was in Old Delhi's Gali Badliyan, an alley so ordinary that only an unreasonably optimistic person would have explored it to seek an object of such profound beauty. The wooden door marked the entrance to a private house that had rust-coloured walls and a finely sculpted balcony.