Helen Keller, author and disability rights advocate, celebrated for her personal triumph over the limitations of both blindness and deafness, said, “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” Through open doors, she expresses optimism, while closed doors symbolise giving up. Closed Doors represent missed opportunities.

Mirza Ghalib, an Indian poet, one of the greatest poets of Urdu, wanted to live in a house without doors, as he wanted freedom from social constraints. In a verse from his famous ghazal, he says – “Be-dar-o-deewar sa ik ghar banaya chahiye (One should build a wall-less, door-less house)”. 

Literally and metaphorically, doors mean much more than just being a symbol of privacy or giving a sense of security.

Doors of Jhunjhunu, Shekhawati, Rajasthan.

A beautifully carved door at the entrance of a Haveli in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan.

A massive door in Naughara closed and opened. Naughara Gali, in Chandni Chowk, Delhi, is a charming and quiet alley. It has nine houses with intricate front doors, each one different from the others.

The opening and closing of doors reveal a great deal about an individual’s personality. Opening the door for women is considered a chivalrous act. Holding the door for someone, especially someone older than you, is a sign of a well-mannered person. It is rude to let the door slam in their face. Closing the door gently, when you can just hear the click of the latch, or slamming the door shut with a loud noise, indicates the state of the person’s mind. It shows whether you are calm or angry.

Shutting the door can be a way to indicate that the person wants privacy. For a teenager, closing the door could be an act of rebellion. He/she wants privacy; it is a protest against excessive parental interference. For old people, shutting their door by the children could give them a feeling of abandonment.

 The opening of a door means reunion with someone you love, such as a child waiting for their mother returning after a long day at work, a lonely elderly person waiting for someone to break the melancholy, or even a pet waiting for its owner. The anxious wait when the door of an operation theatre or a delivery room opens. Closing the door could mean the reverse. There are degrees of sadness in the closing of doors. The sadness in the eyes of a child or an elderly parent when the door gently closes – the loved one is still near, yet they are already far away.

A closed door arouses curiosity. You want to know what is behind the door.

An open door invites friends for chit-chat.

Door or no door is the question.

Doors let in both sunshine and dust. That is life, plus and minus coexist.

Photos and text by Prerna Jain.