Red Fort
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The red sandstone walls of the massive
Red Fort (Lal Qila) rise 33m above the clamour of `Old' Delhi
as a reminder of the magnificent power and pomp of the Moghul
emperors. The walls, built in 1638, may have been designed to
keep out invaders, but today they mainly keep out the noise and
confusion of the city, making the fort and its gardens and pavilions
a peaceful haven from the surrounding chaos. The fort's main gate,
the Lahore Gate, is one of the emotional and symbolic focal points
of the modern Indian nation and attracts a major crowd each Independence
Day.
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| Jama
Masjid |
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The great mosque of `Old' Delhi
is the largest in India, with a courtyard capable of holding
25,000 devotees. It was commenced in 1644 and ended up being
the final architectural extravagance of Shah Jahan, the Moghul
emperor who built the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort. The highly
decorative mosque has three great gateways, four towers and
two 40m high minarets constructed of strips of red sandstone
and white marble. Travellers arriving bare-legged can hire robes
at the northern gate. This may be the only time you get to dress
like a local without feeling like a prat, so make the most of
the hallowed atmosphere.
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Chandni Chowk
The
main street of `Old' Delhi is a magnificent bazaar and as fine
a monument to congestion, colour and chaos as you'll find in India
today. In Shah Jahan's day, it was endowed with fine mansions,
had a tree-lined canal flowing down its centre and was renowned
throughout Asia; today it's jampacked with artisans, traders and
auto-rickshaws and comprises a fantastic cocktail of stench, movement,
uproar and fumes. There's a Jain temple at the street's eastern
end, near the Red Fort; at the western end is the Fatehpuri Mosque,
built by one of Shah Jahan's wives in 1650. |
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| New
Delhi |
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New Delhi is a monument to British
Imperial ambitions solidly set in a city so fluid and chaotic
that it took less than 20 years for the entire planned municipality
to be historically obsolete. Under the leadership of architect
Edward Lutyens, New Delhi was to encapsulate the spirit of British
sovereignty in marble, stone and grandeur. The scale of the
city and its wide ceremonial avenues echoed Moghul architecture,
but the buildings are classical in design and play only the
merest lip service to Indian styles. The result is indeed spacious
and palatial and, compared to many planned cities of the 20th
century, still remarkably useable despite its large unshaded
areas. The major landmarks include the Rashtrapati
Bhavan (once the Viceroy's
House, but now the official residence of the President of India),
Parliament House,
the north and south Secretariat
buildings, the 42m stone war memorial known as India
Gate and the broad Rajpath,
which is flanked with ornamental ponds and is tailor made for
parades. Connaught Place is the day-to-day hub of New Delhi,
a good place to shop, and the scene of some fantastic traffic
accidents.
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| Humayun's
Tomb |
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This grand tomb is the best-preserved example of early Moghul
architecture in Delhi and one of the most beautiful buildings
in the city. Built in the mid-16th century by Haji Begum, wife
of Humayun, the second Moghul emperor, it displays elements
of Moghul design which were eventually refined and incorporated
into the Taj Mahal in Agra. It comprises a squat building with
high arched entrances topped by a bulbous dome and surrounded
by formal gardens. The gardens also contain the red-and-white
sandstone and black-and-yellow marble tomb of Humayun's wife
and, somewhat surprisingly, the tomb of Humayun's barber.
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Qutab Minar
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Qutab Minar is a soaring, 73m high
tower of victory, built in 1193 by Qutab-ud-din immediately after
the defeat of Delhi's last Hindu kingdom. It symbolises Islamic
rule of the city. The tower has five distinct storeys, each marked
by a projecting balcony, and it tapers, like something out of
a fairy tale, from a 15m diameter at the base to just 2.5m at
the top. The first three storeys are made of red sandstone, the
fourth and fifth storeys of marble and sandstone. The stairs inside
the tower coil so steeply that they're enough to make the hardiest
climber dizzy and claustrophobic, and it was no surprise when
a stampede during a school trip in 1979 resulted in a number of
deaths. The inside of the tower has since been closed to visitors.
At the
foot of the tower is the Quwwat-ul-Islam
Mosque, the first mosque
to be built in India. An inscription over its eastern gate provocatively
informs that it was built with material obtained from demolishing
`27 idolatrous (read Hindu) temples'. A 7m high iron pillar
stands in the courtyard of the mosque and it's said that if
you can encircle it with your hands whilst standing with your
back to it, your wish will be fulfilled.
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Raj Ghat
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Raj Ghat, not far from the banks of the Yamuna River, has a simple
black marble memorial to Mahatma Gandhi marking the spot where
he was cremated following his assassination in 1948. A commemorative
ceremony takes place every Friday. Two museums dedicated to Gandhi
are close by. Jawaharlal Nehru was cremated just to the north
at Shanti Vana (Forest of Peace). |
Shalimar Bagh
The Shalimar Garden, which lies on
the fringes of the city about 10km north-west of `Old' Delhi,
is one of the most important Moghul gardens in the city. This
was once the first-night staging post for the Moghuls on their
way to Kashmir and Lahore. Aurangzeb was crowned emperor here
in 1658. The beautiful central pavilion, the Shish
Mahal, was built by Shah
Jahan. Although it is in a fairly advanced state of decay, some
of the original painted flower decoration has survived and the
place has lots of atmosphere. |
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