From the pages of Hamlet

Dilli Gate — as Shakespearean as it can get

‘Crenellation’.

The top of the stone gateway is punctuated with large tablets of stone, which are separated from each other by vertical slits through which the warriors of old times must have aimed their guns, or spears, at the barbarians gathered outside the gate.

Many of you know the meaning of this word. Some of us might not, and we can always Google it. But certainly, all of us ought to head to a particular monument in Delhi and gaze upon this word as it exists in the real world.

Cambridge dictionary explains ‘crenellation’ as “a wall around the top of a castle, with regular spaces in it through which the people inside the castle can shoot”.

This detail is most clearly illustrated at Dilli Gate in central Delhi. The top of the stone gateway is punctuated with large tablets of stone, which are separated from each other by vertical slits through which the warriors of old times must have aimed their guns, or spears, at the barbarians gathered outside the gate.

A landmark of more than 400 years, Dilli Gate is one of the 14 gateways that punctuated the protective wall of the Walled City of Shahjahanabad. Even as most of those gateways are lost to Delhi’s violent history, along with most of the wall, this gate is not unique. Three other gateways of its kind survive. But there is something distinctive about Dilli Gate. Stranded amid the hubbub of a modern-day avenue (Netaji Subhash Marg), it is imbibed with a spirit of wilderness, and it feels far, very far.

In contrast, its other cousins — Ajmeri Gate and Turkman Gate — have evolved to become a seamless appendage to Delhi’s contemporary pulse.

You see neighbourhood men hanging out 24/7 in front of Turkman Gate, with a police chowki attached to it like a limpet; while snack carts abound around Ajmeri Gate. But Dilli Gate stays deserted. Maybe because it is in the middle of a busy road, where it stands aloof like a monumental divider.

The gateway is always locked. From a distance, it looks like a rugged Hebridean island, with stones protruding from a stormy sea (of traffic). The stairs going towards the top are easily noticeable.

Until some weeks ago, they were covered with weedy grass. At night, as the darkness descends, the gateway appears like a translucent monolith exuding mystery and gloom, and acquires the solemnity of a forgotten tragedy.

Indeed, it will be a most appropriate place to stage Hamlet, arguably William Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy, with the doomed hero seeing the ghost of his murdered father dissolutely passing down the stone stairs.

Naturally, the most dramatic time to view the gateway is late at night. In the day, the crenellations teem with peacetime pigeons, compromising Dilli Gate’s intimidating essence.