On the gilded places.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

A simplest chandelier can stir the myth of a gilded age. At United Coffee House in Connaught Place, the feeling holds. Two chandeliers hang from the ceiling. One long-ago morning, their clear reflections formed flawlessly on the surface of a customer’s black Darjeeling tea, as if miniature chandeliers had been lowered into the cup. The illusion lasted until lifting the cup broke the tea’s still surface.

Here is a brief survey of some impressionistic chandeliers across the city.

At Samar Guest House in Old Delhi’s Urdu Bazar, the ground floor offers little: just a long, narrow staircase rising to the reception. Yet the road-facing staircase carries an unexpected dignity, conferred by a small chandelier suspended above it, casting a steady light. The glow is curiously melancholic, as if a kind of soft weeping has clung to wherever the light is falling. The passerby, accidentally spotting it from outside, is momentarily drenched in a feeling of regret and loss.

During the just-concluded month of Ramzan, a modest chandelier had been hanging over Chitli Qabar Chowk as part of the wider street decoration. It remained lit through the night. By day, though unlit, the chandelier lent the place a quiet grace, redeeming it of its disconcerting chaos.

On a recent Sunday evening in Chandni Chowk’s Bhagirathi Palace light market, most lighting shops are found shuttered in the darkened lane. One is open: Global Lighting. Scores of small chandeliers hang across its storefront, their warm light echoing the softly lit, repeating arches of Isfahan’s Khaju Bridge at night.

At Madras Coffee House in Shivaji Stadium, a chandelier hangs at the centre of the ceiling above a table. This evening, its glare is resting upon a silent couple. The sight recalls lines from a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy:
In the small room, radiantly lit
by the chandelier’s hot fire,
no ordinary light breaks out.
Not for timid bodies
the lust of this heat.

In North Delhi’s Maidens Hotel, three chandeliers hang in a row in the lobby, but are multiplied many times over by wall mirrors. The one nearest the coffee shop is suspended above a sweeping staircase. The setting is melodramatic; you imagine a distraught Anna Karenina running down the staircase at any moment, her many reflections forming on the glass crystals of the chandelier.

At Kwality, chandeliers cover the restaurant ceiling. One stands above the piano. This evening, the pianist, Mister Tony, is playing a tune from the film song Rahe na rahe hum. The reflection of the chandelier is spreading across the piano’s slanted lid. The sight is arresting, see photo.