Lal Qila (Red Fort)

It's been a month since we came back from New Delhi, and I STILL have not caught up with this blog.

Here is the outer wall of the Red Fort, which is in the old(er) section of Delhi. As noted, you can see it from the Jama Masjid. Still a puzzle to me why historical remnants of forts and mosques seem so much more cheerful than the active mosques in New Delhi.


Even on this hot day, over 100 F, you can see how crowded it is here. As I suspected, people do not stay indoors when it's hot. Life goes on, everyone has to go to work, and everyone still wants to have fun, which in New Delhi seems to require leaving the house, rather than staying in and watching TV.

To the left is one of the entrances to the fort. and to the right is a kind of outdoor hallway lined with little shops, just as it was in the great days of the fort. The high arched ceiling was a wind tunnel that created a pleasant breeze.

People have been asking me if it was hazy like this the whole time. Well, I didn't notice the haze until we looked at the photos. It was dry (premonsoon) most of the time we were there.









Even now I am enthralled with the delicacy of the stone art that one sees in Indo-Islamic architecture.

I hope you take a closer look at the detail in these photos. Those little alabaster boxes we see in World Market or Earthbound or the like are just echoes of the fine detail that decorate Islamic monuments.

For instance, that would be semi-precious gem inlay on that fenced-in bench.




Here is another Indo-Islamic feature, Islamic arches of Indian red stone.











Doesn't this remind you of Greek architecture?

This

Another little mosque. I believe. This was quite a lovely fort.

And another example of semi-precious gem inlay. On pillars for pete's sake. Even with remnants of the original fort, one gets a sense of the opulence of life for the Muslin rulers.

In the foreground is a structure from the Islamic empire, and in the background a building from the British empire.

Jama Masjid

I adore the angle Usha took in this photo of the steps to the entrance the Jama Masjid, so it will be the thumbnail for this post.

On the right is the view of the Jama Masjid, with the sad crowded little market in front.

As it turns out, there are several Jama Masjids in India, but this one is the largest: The Lonely Planet  guide to India says it can hold 25,000 people in the courtyard. Here is an enthusiastic link about the Delhi edifice: Jama Masjid.

Another cloudy hot day, and so not so many people there, but we tried to give a sense of how large that area is.  

Of course we had to remove our shoes (that is the case with the Hindu. Muslim, and Sikh places of worship in India). The pavement was so hot they laid down strips of cloth as walkways.

There is no inner sanctum as such for worship, but a wall that faces Mecca, as I understand it. Look below:  only men were lying out front. The women were off to the side.

The men were unconcerned as Usha and I wandered, unaware for the first few minutes that we were on the men's side. I felt an ancestral shudder when I realized that, and we got out of there. Of course, I would not have felt that in the US. For instance, in our Hindu temple in Savannah, the men sit up front by the priest and the women in the back. It seems more like a polite formality there.

As I may have mentioned earlier, Usha is collecting images for inspiration in her upcoming sophomore year as a visual arts major at Savannah Arts Academy, a magnet high school. Of course she had to sample these images.

I felt a persistent sadness here at this mosque, whereas  the ancient remains of mosques and tombs in the parks were cheerful. Perhaps because no one was smiling at the mosque, only at the parks. Or it could be the nature of Islam, because the one little Hindu temple and the Sikh Golden Temple, both in Amritsar, were quite spiritually sunny, evident even to an agnostic like me.

On the left is a view of the Lal Qila, or Red Fort, which is also in Old Delhi. That is the topic of another blog.

Qutb Minar Complex

I still muse on the Qutb Minar Complex, an archeological site whose architecture spans the rise and fall of the Islamic empire in India.  But there is a small, significant Hindu presence here - see the end of this blog.

This two photos are of the Qutb Minar itself, which was rather like the Eiffel Tower of its day, I suppose, in terms of technology. It was intended to be a symbol of Islamic dominance in India. Below are some of the beautifully detailed carving on the structures themselves. Once again we see the delicate yet exuberant Indo-Islamic patterns in the stone carving on the tower walls.

I have to say, Islam at its height in India was a graceful culture in its art, literature, and music. Even in science.

 

 

In Madhur Jaffrey's lovely cookbook A Taste of India, she reminisces about picnics with her extended family in the Qutb Minar Complex. We did not see picnics that day with the premonsoon heat, yet the grass and the hilly expanses were pretty green (despite the picture) and people certainly came out.

As usual there were tombs as well as old mosques in this cheerful place. Birds flew around in the high ceilings. Have I already said that the tombs were like final gifts of beauty from the dead rulers to their people?

Here I am in the hat that Usha so disliked. I do look pretty dowdy, but I was too entranced by the sights to notice at the time!!

Still, I highly recommended such a hat when travelling in the sun in India.

Doodling everywhere in the world.

Ah, here is the symbol of the decline of the Islamic empire, the tower that was intended to be twice as tall as the Qutb Minar, but was left unfinished - lack of money, I believe. Shocking to extrapolate just how tall it could have been, just from the dimensions of this base.

In the middle of this expanse of crumbling ornate architecture is a Hindu remnant, an simple iron pillar from a Vishnu temple. It has not rusted in 2000 years, and to date no one knows why. The pillar is over 99% iron. Also. it's not that dry here. We were drenched when the monsoon arrived the next week. So why has it not rusted? That's the Qutb Minar on the left, in the photo on the right.

I think of this pillar as symbol the Hindu culture which was here when the Moghuls came, and was  still vibrant when the empire fell.

National Zoological Park

That sign is adorable, isn't it? And of course, ruins in the background. This city has archeology in every other corner.

Sorry, we don't have the scientific names for many of these, such as for the spotted deer on the left. But I like Usha's photo of the peacock and peahen on the right.

Here are three more creatures that stayed still long enough for a photo - and also Usha!




                                         

  

Just a sample of the wide variety of birds, including an albino peacock.

Although of course it's a male bird, this albino peacock reminds me of a Hindu widow in white. The albino is vulnerable in the wild. especially since the peacock cannot fly. A white-sari'd Hindu widow is meant to be invisible and is also vulnerable to exploitation. However, look how regal the bird is. I've seen the same upright posture in widows.

The zoo is large, and it was hot (still premonsoon), so we left before we could see the tiger, lion, bear (really!) and other animals.

I'm writing this on our last night here, before we leave for the airport for our flight back home at 2 in the morning!!