The Walled City encyclopaedia.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

This must be the city’s most beautiful barbershop, though it has no name. Its stone portal is flanked by a trio of graceful arches, and stepping through them feels less like entering a place for a quick shave and more like walking into a monument meant for admiration.

Gali Dharampura, as this lane is informally known, is among the most picturesque streets of Old Delhi. The lane feels curated, as though shaped by an aesthete determined to keep out the embarrassing aspects of the Walled City. It is oddly orderly, free from the usual intrusions of Old Delhi’s chaos—the noise, crowds, tangles of wires, and impossible traffic of bikes and rickshaws. Walking here can feel like moving through a film set designed to mimic the idea of an Old Delhi street rather than the unruly reality of one.

Every doorway seems composed with attention to beauty. Sometimes a door stands slightly open, offering a glimpse of the household within (a drawing-room sofa, a washing machine, the tulsi plant in the courtyard). And oh, the long balcony above the aforementioned barbershop! It is so finely sculpted, so evocative of Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo in the novel Palace Walk. One almost feels that, as in the novel, the lady of the house might be secretly watching from the privacy of her balcony’s jaali, observing the life unfolding in the street below. At this moment, a sari is hanging out to dry from the balcony’s beautiful balustrade.

The lane is also home to a super-fancy hotel that was a derelict haveli just a few years ago. The hotel’s name has come to be commonly associated with the lane. From its rooftop one sees not only a sweeping view of the old city, but also the intimate world of neighbouring terraces. This afternoon, several domestic scenes are unfolding at once: two women spreading mangoris on a string charpoy to dry in the sun; an elderly man pacing slowly along his roof; a young man, wrapped in a towel, stretching after a (presumed) bath; and a monkey untying a cloth bundle. Above them all, a boy flies a kite, its green-and-red square trembling in the pale sky.

The street is composed mainly of residences, but it also passes by a good number of hyperlocal establishments, such as Siya Ram Nannu Mal Kulfi Wale, the Marriage Bureau Information Center, Ashok General Store, Arun Paan Bhandar, Jaitara Sweets & Namkeens—very tasty matar samosas!—and Devki Kirana Store. The last stands beside a doorway that seems to have lost its original shade to the relentless cycles of monsoons and heatwaves. One afternoon last month, a memorable moment occurred here. Standing under that same doorway was writer Jhumpa Lahiri, who happened to be visiting Dilli at the time. See photo.

PS: Gali Dharampura is technically a part of the neighbouring Gali Guliya, which is around the next turning—that lane will be chronicled separately.