Although Nizam-ud-din seems to have preserved a pocket of decrepitude and filth around his precincts (godliness and cleanliness having become uncoupled), the rest of Delhi is as leafy as Bangalore and with much less litter and better sidewalks. It is smellier (my nose is working just fine; I try not to gasp at the ammoniac reek), and the destitute are either more numerous or more visible, but the auto-rickshaw wallahs are less insistent than elsewhere. There are monkeys, but no cows.
The highlight for me so far was Qila Lal, the Red Fort, built by Shah Jahan when he intended to move his capital from Agra (his son interfered and imprisoned him in Agra Fort where he died). It was a fortification that protected an elaborate palace complex. The British took a terrible revenge here for the 1847 "Uprising," razing many of the exquisite court buildings (as well as slaughtering thousands of Indians, including all ten of the last emperor's sons). An idea of what was lost can be gleaned from what remains: the throne room's elaborate canopied stone platform (the Peacock Throne itself having been looted by the Afghans), and especially the open-air reception hall. Nine arches long (each arch with eight inward-facing points), just between King Hall and the Main Common Room in size, it's a fantasy in white marble, columns inlaid with pietra dura flowers and low-relief cartouches with gold fill. The silver-gilt ceiling tiles are mostly damaged, but the elegance and lightness remain: the Mughals were supreme at conspicuous consumption. A smaller, more delicate set of rooms to its south was roped off---but the rope was knee-high and there were no guards, so crowds of Indians (with a blithe disregard for crossing official lines evident elsewhere) just stepped over and in. Another half-dozen beautiful buildings (as well as functional administrative one built by the British) stand within the extensive red sandstone crenellated walls.
Halfway around the site I sat in the shade at the edge of a dry water-course (broad channels once carried cool water to all parts of the complex and supplied its fountains). As I ate a handful of dates and read my guidebook, I noticed some moving fabric, out of the corner of my eye. Looking up, I understood: across the channel an entire extended family, in holiday apparel, stood, egging on the grandmother as she inched closer to me, while the family's one son, age eight or so, tried to get us together in his viewfinder. I put down my book, removed my sunglasses, leaned closer to the matriarch, and smiled. It's not the first time: a half-dozen Indian family albums now have an inexplicable foreigner appearing randomly in them. The boy practiced his English and showed the photo to me and to his grandmother, whose only English word seemed to be "photo," but who clasped my hand with her henna- or mehndi-covered one, as she left.
Waiting to catch the return bus I watched the traffic--the densest I've seen yet, with a Diwali carnival set-up adding to the confusion--and saw a procession of chanting men carrying overhead a litter with what appeared to be a sheet-wrapped corpse on it. I hoped somehow it was an effigy needed for a ritual . . . .
The highlight for me so far was Qila Lal, the Red Fort, built by Shah Jahan when he intended to move his capital from Agra (his son interfered and imprisoned him in Agra Fort where he died). It was a fortification that protected an elaborate palace complex. The British took a terrible revenge here for the 1847 "Uprising," razing many of the exquisite court buildings (as well as slaughtering thousands of Indians, including all ten of the last emperor's sons). An idea of what was lost can be gleaned from what remains: the throne room's elaborate canopied stone platform (the Peacock Throne itself having been looted by the Afghans), and especially the open-air reception hall. Nine arches long (each arch with eight inward-facing points), just between King Hall and the Main Common Room in size, it's a fantasy in white marble, columns inlaid with pietra dura flowers and low-relief cartouches with gold fill. The silver-gilt ceiling tiles are mostly damaged, but the elegance and lightness remain: the Mughals were supreme at conspicuous consumption. A smaller, more delicate set of rooms to its south was roped off---but the rope was knee-high and there were no guards, so crowds of Indians (with a blithe disregard for crossing official lines evident elsewhere) just stepped over and in. Another half-dozen beautiful buildings (as well as functional administrative one built by the British) stand within the extensive red sandstone crenellated walls.
Halfway around the site I sat in the shade at the edge of a dry water-course (broad channels once carried cool water to all parts of the complex and supplied its fountains). As I ate a handful of dates and read my guidebook, I noticed some moving fabric, out of the corner of my eye. Looking up, I understood: across the channel an entire extended family, in holiday apparel, stood, egging on the grandmother as she inched closer to me, while the family's one son, age eight or so, tried to get us together in his viewfinder. I put down my book, removed my sunglasses, leaned closer to the matriarch, and smiled. It's not the first time: a half-dozen Indian family albums now have an inexplicable foreigner appearing randomly in them. The boy practiced his English and showed the photo to me and to his grandmother, whose only English word seemed to be "photo," but who clasped my hand with her henna- or mehndi-covered one, as she left.
Waiting to catch the return bus I watched the traffic--the densest I've seen yet, with a Diwali carnival set-up adding to the confusion--and saw a procession of chanting men carrying overhead a litter with what appeared to be a sheet-wrapped corpse on it. I hoped somehow it was an effigy needed for a ritual . . . .
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