I asked for a later breakfast from the sweet homestay owner (whose marvelous cook has made a couple of GF meals for me; I still can't get used to the presence of servants everywhere) and headed off about 6:20---just after it became fully light---to the local sight, and apparently the highlight of Delhi's many Mughal monuments, Humayun's Tomb. [Humayun was the second Mughal emperor; he had a checkered career, losing the empire to an Afghan, spending 15 years in exile in Persia--his mother's home--then regaining the throne, only to die six months later, falling down the marble steps in his library.] His senior wife, away on the Haj when he died, made the tomb for him (a bit of guilt there, perhaps?).
The mornings are cool, and although I inadvertently walked a roundabout route, that gave me a chance to see more of the lovely, Mediterranean-type homes in this gated neighborhood (Nizamuddin East, the exact opposite of Nizamuddin West, a warren of medieval alleys around the shrine of the Sufi saint Nizam-ud-din), and it brought me to the tomb in its extensive grounds just as the ticket-seller arrived. [Tickets are 20 cents for Indians, $5 for everyone else, which I find entirely fair.] I was the only tourist for the entire two hours I spent there!
Since I can't upload photos, you'll have to google "Humayun's Tomb" (a World Heritage site, so there'll be lots of images). The 2003 main-building restoration is being supplemented by ongoing work: in the ground-level platform the arched recesses, which may look like a colonnade but are each the individual entry to a small chamber, giving onto another interior chamber, are being whitewashed, with the lattice-groins picked out in thin double lines of ochre. The tiny pillared canopies on the very top used to be covered in blue tiles: that must have been lovely. The pierced-stone windows, looking so fragile, are actually six inches deep: they let in air and keep out sun, but they also have a religious reference: when Mohammed was hiding from his enemies, a spider wove a web across the cave entrance, so the cave was not searched, and these patterned stone webs recall that event. (World history changed by an arachnid.) I doubt that the photos will show the bright-green parrots that add a grace note to the red sandstone and white ornamentation! And nor can they provide the sound of chanting coming from a mosque nearby: the perfect sound track.
The mornings are cool, and although I inadvertently walked a roundabout route, that gave me a chance to see more of the lovely, Mediterranean-type homes in this gated neighborhood (Nizamuddin East, the exact opposite of Nizamuddin West, a warren of medieval alleys around the shrine of the Sufi saint Nizam-ud-din), and it brought me to the tomb in its extensive grounds just as the ticket-seller arrived. [Tickets are 20 cents for Indians, $5 for everyone else, which I find entirely fair.] I was the only tourist for the entire two hours I spent there!
Since I can't upload photos, you'll have to google "Humayun's Tomb" (a World Heritage site, so there'll be lots of images). The 2003 main-building restoration is being supplemented by ongoing work: in the ground-level platform the arched recesses, which may look like a colonnade but are each the individual entry to a small chamber, giving onto another interior chamber, are being whitewashed, with the lattice-groins picked out in thin double lines of ochre. The tiny pillared canopies on the very top used to be covered in blue tiles: that must have been lovely. The pierced-stone windows, looking so fragile, are actually six inches deep: they let in air and keep out sun, but they also have a religious reference: when Mohammed was hiding from his enemies, a spider wove a web across the cave entrance, so the cave was not searched, and these patterned stone webs recall that event. (World history changed by an arachnid.) I doubt that the photos will show the bright-green parrots that add a grace note to the red sandstone and white ornamentation! And nor can they provide the sound of chanting coming from a mosque nearby: the perfect sound track.
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