Delhiwale: Happy ‘Samvat 1999’

A beautiful doorway in the Millennium City.

The top of the gateway is inscribed with ‘Om’. This sacred symbol is adorned by a roaring lion on one side, and a roaring boar on the other. The lion’s head is missing. Directly underneath is another engraving, of Lord Shiv paired with a representation of Lord Vishnu and Goddess Lakshmi. The gateway’s arch is shaped like a series of wavelets - like on a portal to an ancient temple.

Lala Shyamlal Bhavan in Gurugram

This must be among the most beautiful gateways not only in the Millennium City of Gurugram, but probably in the entire Delhi region. Marked with ochre blotches, its walls look like the tinted sky in sundown. At first glance, the doorway appears to have been standing here for centuries. But then you notice that the paint has peeled off here and there, revealing modern-day bricks underneath.

Located at one end of the genteel Civil Lines, across the road from the “PWD office”, the gateway’s name is engraved on a central panel, along with the year in which it was presumably installed — Lala Shyamlal Bhawan, Samvat 1999 (1942 according to the Gregorian calendar). The structure leads to a small cul-de-sac flanked by private residences. The facades of some of these houses seem to be of recent vintage, but one (locked) door firmly belongs to aesthetics of the past — its wood is sculpted into a delicate pattern of designs that you no longer see. The ‘taak’ or the arched niche above the door is laced with layers of cobwebs. Nobody seems to have knocked here for a very, very long time.

Some minutes later, a young man steps out of one of the houses. A school student, he explains that the entire complex belongs to an extended family.

Most of the houses have undergone renovations across the years, he says, but the gateway has always been left untouched. He points to a circular orb on its upper reaches. “It originally used to have a clock, which, I’m told, was stolen soon after the construction.” That absent clock has never been replaced, he says. The young man goes back to his house, leaving the gateway to its timelessness.