If there is one thing I envy Delhi-ites, it is the green oasis of Lodhi Gardens. Over ninety acres of unexpected tranquility to escape the gridlocked delirium of their capital city. The landscaping would be easy enough to replicate elsewhere in India (who am I kidding!). But it is the historic ambience, those omnipresent vestiges of Delhi’s storied past, that make […]
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A primitive dancing girl and a Tantric Goddess trigger reflections on the current status of women in India.
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LAST UPDATED: 02 MARCH 2022 The site is deserted, even at midday. The ₹5 entrance fee (Since hiked. See updated travel logistics below) is almost an apology, even without the elevated status of a royal tomb. This “last flicker in the lamp of Mughal architecture” is the final resting place of the erstwhile Nawab of […]
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Delhi’s architectural vestiges, the remains of its seven original cities, represent its complex and convoluted history. The spectacular rise of empires and the disasters and conflicts that led to their fall, writ large on every crumbling stone.. Mehrauli is the second of the seven cities, built around 1206AD by Qutub ud din Aibak, a former slave and general of Mohammed Ghori, who […]
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No, I haven’t turned into a canine hunting vampire overnight! The title is the literal translation of a quintessential Bollywood quote from a 1973 Hindi flick, that has become synonymous with its aging, macho, once dashing, still endearing star. ‘Dog’ in this instance refers to the vile villain, who is about to have the %#&* beaten […]
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Getting to Chandni Chowk, for our tour with Delhi Heritage Walks was hard work that Monday afternoon. First a purported three minute walk to the subway station ended up being ten, I am guessing, because we neglected to specify the name of the station. Once there (Janpat), we found every ticket vending machine out of order, […]
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The unique stepwells of India, called Baoli’s (or Vavs in Gujurat), are ornate, complex structures that are legacies of the subcontinent’s ancient hydraulic engineering systems.
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On the couple of sublimely solitary hours we got to spend revelling in the magnificence of this necropolis and the serene silence of its pink stones.
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Granted my earlier visits had been limited to meetings with modular furniture makers and interior contractors, but charm was still the last thing I expected to find in Delhi. An insidious allure that gets under your skin even as you wilt in the heat and the pollution smothers your lungs. “Do tourists really get to know […]
Read MoreWe are back from our 1700 kilometer road trip – excluding our flight to and from Delhi – that covered more tombs and places of worship than we have visited in all our years of travel! It was an intense roller coaster ride into centuries of Indian history in reverse, from imperial New Delhi to […]
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The Urge To Wander 