Delhi Darshan

by Giles Tillotson

  Leaving CP by Kasturba Gandhi Marg, one comes to the British Council (Charles Correa, 1992) just before the junction with Tolstoy Marg. To the east (and reached by either Barakhamba Road or Firoz Shah Road) is Mandi House, another region with a cluster of arts institutions in exceptional buildings including Rabindra Bhavan (Habib Rahman), Triveni Kala Sangam (Joseph Allen Stein), Shri Ram Arts Centre (Shiv Nath Prasad) and Himachal Bhavan (Satish Grover). Together these buildings chart the development of Indian design from the impact of Corbusian modernism in the 1960s to more regionalist approaches that followed (pp. 122–127). The institutions they house also feature prominently in the present life of the city.

  Central New Delhi—South

  The route starts at Birla House, the site of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, located on Tees January Marg, between Akbar and Aurangzeb Roads. Though structurally little has changed, this fine house is now run as a memorial museum. It is a tough call to build a museum collection around a man who left behind so little in terms of material possessions as Gandhi did; but there is a display of historical photographs and (upstairs) some interactive models that illustrate aspects of Gandhian thought. Outside in the garden you can trace his last steps up to the spot where Nathuram Godse barged his way through the crowd to shoot the Mahatma at point-blank range.

  The route proceeds via Akbar Road (with glimpses of New Delhi’s famous officials’ bungalows) to the Indira Gandhi Memorial (her former residence, now a museum) in Safdarjang Road; and from there to Teen Murti Bhavan (built as the residence of the commander-in-chief, later used by Nehru and now a memorial museum to him). From there we proceed south-west into the diplomatic quarter, Chanakyapuri, and glimpse from outside some selected embassies which make, or attempt, major architectural statements, including the US Embassy (Edward Durrell Stone, 1958); the Belgian Embassy (Satish Gujral, 1983, p. 124); the French Embassy school (Raj Rewal, 1984); and the Pakistani High Commission (Karl Heinz, 1963).

  We will pass over the British High Commission, which is a disgrace. The country of Inigo Jones, Christopher Wren and Edwin Lutyens apparently forgot the persuasive and political power of architecture when it came to representing themselves in the capital of its former empire. Almost within sight of the dome of what had been Viceroy’s House, they erected the dreariest group of buildings that post-war Britain could muster.

  The loveliest is the US Embassy. How it came to be so exquisite is a story told by the essayist Tom Wolfe. The architect, Edward Durrell Stone, first made his name as a committed modernist of the most minimalist order. His Museum of Modern Art in New York (1939) is achingly ugly. But in 1953, on a flight from New York to Paris, he found himself seated next to a woman named Maria, whom he described as ‘explosively Latin’. Before they landed, he fell in love and proposed. But the lady was cautious. She didn’t like his clothes and she didn’t like his architecture. He vowed to change both. And thus it is that the American Embassy in Delhi has columns that taper towards the base so that they seem to stand on tiptoe like ballerinas; and they are ornamented with gold leaf. There are marble grilles and terrazzo tiling. He called it Taj Maria! The modernist purists were aghast. How could anyone be so vulgar? They excommunicated him. But he had got the girl.

  Rajghat to the Lotus Temple

  This route is a grand sweep down the whole eastern side of the city, using the Ring Road that follows the line of the Yamuna river. But Delhi’s river is elusive. Though the city has been built and rebuilt on its bank many times, it is all but invisible to the casual visitor. In Agra, downstream, the same river seems always to be getting in the way, barring the path between you and your destination. But you can explore most of the places described in this book without so much as catching a glimpse of it. Partly this is because the historical Delhi (unlike Agra) does not straddle the river; it was built only on one side, the west bank, and the fickle, shallow-bedded river has changed its course and wandered away to the east, leaving the city remote and unwashed. Commuters from Noida, the modern satellite city on the eastern bank, cross the Yamuna daily, but for most it is just a name, a thing forgotten.

  Even so, the river has played a role in iconic moments in the city’s modern history. Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on the afternoon of 30 January 1948, on the lawns of Birla House, the private home of one of his industrialist patrons, in the calm and elegant centre of Lutyens’s New Delhi. But he was cremated (where else?) on the riverbank, just outside the old city. When kings or saints of the past were cremated a domed pavilion was raised to mark the spot, and this latter-day saint too has a memorial on his cremation ground, a simple and restrained affair without flourish or ornament, in keeping with his lifestyle. Designed by the architect Vanu G. Bhuta, it consists of a black marble platform surrounded by low stone walls. The Devanagari inscription on one end reads ‘He Ram’—an invocation of the god Ram, and Gandhi’s last words as he fell dying.

  This spot is an inescapable port of call for visiting heads of state. Controversial throughout his political life, Mahatma Gandhi is uncontroversial in death as an exemplar of peace and reconciliation, venerated by leaders of all persuasions. Besides the politicians, about 10,000 other visitors come here daily. The cremation site is a suitable place to reflect on Gandhi’s life and death by those who already know about him, but those wishing to learn might find it more instructive to visit the assassination spot, Birla House (p. 157).

  The Ring Road that passes Rajghat, now officially called Mahatma Gandhi Road, leads south towards two riverside forts. The first is the Kotla built by Firuz Shah Tughluq in the fourteenth century, with its strange ziggurat surmounted by an imported Ashokan column, engraved with what was then an unreadable Brahmi inscription. This fort also contains a plain and ruined but handsomely proportioned mosque and an elaborate stepwell (p. 33).

  The stone gateway that stands in the middle of the main road, just outside the Kotla on its western side, despite appearances, is not historically connected with it. It was built two centuries later as the northern gate of a city wall that enclosed—along with many buildings that are now lost—the next fort down the line, the Purana Qila. Developed by the early Mughals and the Sur dynasty (pp. 56–59), this stately if crumbling fort also once overlooked the river.

  The walls of the Purana Qila provide a dramatic backdrop for the Delhi Zoo (the National Zoological Park) situated to its south. Developed in the 1950s with the help of expert guidance imported from Hungary, the zoo includes specimens of Bengal tiger, black bear, Indian rhinoceros, several species of deer and many brightly plumaged waterbirds such as painted storks. Like all zoos, it is a favourite place for family outings. Sandwiched between the zoo and the main road is a colony and market called Sunder Nagar, whose residents are serenaded through the night by the roars of lions and tigers.

  Continuing south-east, past Humayun’s tomb and Nizamuddin (see above, the section on Lodi Road), the Mathura Road eventually crosses the southern Outer Ring Road. A little to the west, towards Nehru Place, stand two remarkable temples, one ancient, the other modern. The first is the Kalkaji Mandir, among the most popular and oldest shrines in Delhi, which contains a self-fashioned or self-revealed image of the goddess Kali. The present building itself does not appear very old, two hundred years at most, but the antiquity of the shrine is a matter less of archaeology than of faith. Its origins lie less in history than in epic and legend since devotees believe that Lord Krishna and the Pandavas worshipped here before and after the battle of Kurukshetra. Many of today’s pilgrims approach it with specific requests to lay before the goddess as the temple is also known as Manokamna Siddha Peetha, the ‘desire-fulfilling shrine’.

  Nearby is the undeniably modern Baha’i House of Worship, popularly known as the Lotus Temple, designed by the Iranian architect Fariborz Sahba and built in the 1980s (p. 128).

  Hauz Khas to Tughluqabad

  The route starts at Hauz Khas, the fourteenth-century madrasa complex by a lake built by Firuz Shah Tughluq, where the students dined
so sumptuously (see pp. 35–36). The madrasa complex itself is entered through a gate at the end of the main road of the old village which clusters around the site and now houses a number of fashionable boutiques and restaurants. The lake is at a lower level and is approached separately, through the entrance to the deer park at the start of the village. The path around the lake and the gardens beyond it are a great place for a morning or evening stroll. So too are the woods on the far side of the deer park (reached by turning right inside its entry gate) which are dotted with tombs of the Lodi era, including a stately one known as Bagh-i-Alam.

  Percy Brown wasn’t wrong when he moaned about the profusion of Lodi tombs (p. 40), just a little spoilt and ungrateful. Perhaps as an art historian he felt burdened by the impossibility of writing about all of them. There are indeed a lot and they are very similar to one another, varying only in size and their state of preservation. But they add immensely to the rich tapestry of Delhi’s past. The A-list monuments—the UNESCO World Heritage sites—are truly fantastic: we do our homework, we buy a ticket and we take a round. But it is a wonder of another kind to go for a walk in a wood and stumble across a fifteenth-century tomb, crumbling and lichen-covered, its inner chamber a home to feral dogs, its outer niches nesting places for parakeets. Maybe the resident flame-back woodpecker will put in an appearance, flickering gold briefly on a nearby tree. But the stone walls stand solid, and the dome resolutely raises its arc against the painfully shining sky. The view of it bursts upon you, to tell you that five hundred years ago, others came where you now walk, and built something to last—worthy to last—even if they themselves have not. The sheer frequency of this—for indeed, there are so many—is a part of what makes Delhi special.

  People who live in Delhi can take such encounters for granted. It is just a perk of the real estate. They might string up a volleyball net in what was once its garden. Good for them! So long as they don’t scratch their names on its walls. So long as they pause once in a while to consider how playing in the shadow of such buildings connects them with the past.

  From Hauz Khas village, we head south on the main road (Aurobindo Marg). Just before reaching the Qutb Minar, turn left (east) on to the Badarpur Road, at the far end of which lies Tughluqabad, the vast fourteenth-century fort, with nearby the tomb of Ghiyas-ud-din (pp. 29–30).

  The Qutb Minar in an aquatint by Thomas & William Daniell published in 1808, based on drawings made by them on site in 1789.

  The courtyard and screen of the Quwwatu’l-Islam mosque, painted by Robert Smith, c. 1822.

  The Purana Qila from the west; aquatint by Thomas & William Daniell published in 1796, based on drawings made by them on site in 1789.

  The Red Fort (Lal Qila) seen from the River Yamuna; section of a panorama by a Delhi artist, c. 1815 .

  Plan of the Red Fort, drawn by a Jaipur cartographer, c. 1725.

  Emperor Aurangzeb on the Peacock Throne, by a Mughal artist, 1700–1750.

  Jantar Mantar; aquatint by Thomas & William Daniell published in 1808, based on drawings made by them on site in 1789.

  The arcades of Connaught Place, designed by Robert Tor Russell in 1931.

  Further Reading

  History

  The history of Delhi, as recounted by scholars, is inseparable from that of northern India in general, so a comprehensive bibliography would be vast and wide. But the successive phases in the city’s history are well captured in a handful of well-written studies: Upinder Singh, Ancient Delhi, 1999; Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, Royalty in Medieval India, 1997; Kishori Saran Lal, Twilight of the Sultanate, 1980; Francis Robinson, The Mughal Emperors, 2007; T.C.A. Raghavan, Attendant Lords, 2017; Jadunath Sarkar, A Short History of Aurangzeb, 2009; Audrey Truschke, Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth, 2017; William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal, 2006; Percival Spear, Twilight of the Mughals, 1951; Narayani Gupta, Delhi between Two Empires, 1981.

  Architecture: Listings and Handbooks

  The definitive catalogue of the city’s monuments is: Ratish Nanda, Narayani Gupta and O.P. Jain, Delhi: The Built Heritage—A Listing, INTACH, 2 vols, 1999. The classic listing is: Zafar Hasan, Monuments of Delhi, 4 vols, 1916–20. The best recent handbooks are: Lucy Peck, Delhi: A Thousand Years of Building, 2005; and Swapna Liddle, Delhi: 14 Historic Walks, 2011. Two older guides still have value: Percival Spear, Delhi: Its Monuments and History, 1943, reprinted 1997; and Y.D. Sharma, Delhi and Its Neighbourhood, ASI, 1964/1982. The classics, now themselves historical relics, include H.C. Fanshawe, Delhi Past and Present, 1902; Gordon Risley Hearn, The Seven Cities of Delhi, 1906; and Gordon Sanderson, Delhi Fort: A Guide to the Buildings and Gardens, 1914. A recent book with an engaging narrative approach is Swapna Liddle, Chandni Chowk: The Mughal City of Old Delhi, 2017. The work by Percy Brown that is referred to is Indian Architecture (Islamic Period), 1942. Simon Digby’s article on the Lodi Gardens is published in The Bulletin of SOAS, Vol. 38, No. 3, 1975. Subhash Parihar’s article on the Afsarwala mosque is in Marg, Vol. 49, No. 4, 1998.

  Mughal Court and Culture

  As with the city’s history, most accounts of Delhi’s Mughal culture are embedded in studies of broader reach. A few of the best are: Gavin Hambly, Cities of Mughul India, 1968; Bamber Gascoigne, The Great Moghuls, 1971; M.M. Kaye, The Golden Calm: An English Lady’s Life in Moghul Delhi, 1980; Ebba Koch, Mughal Architecture: An Outline, 1991; Annemarie Schimmel, The Empire of the Great Mughals, 2004; William Dalrymple and Yuthika Sharma (eds), Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707–1857, 2012; Sadia Dehlvi, The Sufi Courtyard: Dargahs of Delhi, 2012.

  New Delhi

  The best accounts of the planning and building of the new capital are: Robert Grant Irving, Indian Summer: Lutyens, Baker and Imperial Delhi, 1981; Gavin Stamp, ‘New Delhi’ in Lutyens, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1981; Andreas Volwahsen, Imperial Delhi, 2002; Aman Nath, Dome over India: Rashtrapati Bhavan, 2006; Malvika Singh, New Delhi: Making of a Capital, 2009; Dhruva N. Chaudhuri, New Delhi down the Decades, 2013; Sumanta K. Bhowmick, Princely Palaces in New Delhi, 2016 and Swapna Liddle, Connaught Place, 2018.

  Modern Architecture

  Rahul Khanna, The Modern Architecture of New Delhi, 2008, is a general handbook. The careers of two distinguished architects of the city are covered in monographs: Brian Brace Taylor, Raj Rewal, 1992; and Stephen White, Building in the Garden: The Architecture of Joseph Allen Stein in India and California, 1998. The story of the US Embassy is told in Tom Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our House, 1982.

  Urbanism, etc.

  Catherine B. Asher, Delhi’s Qutb Complex: The Minar, Mosque and Mehrauli, 2017; Norma Evenson, The Indian Metropolis, 1989; Lawrence J. Vale, Architecture, Power and National Identity, 1992; Pradip Krishen, Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide, 2006; J.P. Losty, Delhi 360°: Mazhar Ali Khan’s View from the Lahore Gate, 2012; J.P. Losty (ed.), Delhi: Red Fort to Raisina, 2012; Jyoti Hosagrahar, Indigenous Modernities: Negotiating Architecture and Urbanism, 2005; Pilar Maria Guerrieri, Maps of Delhi, 2017; Pilar Maria Guerrieri, Negotiating Cultures: Delhi’s Architecture and Planning from 1912 to 1962, 2018.

  Selected Novels and Travelogues

  Flora Annie Steel, On the Face of the Waters, 1896; Ahmed Ali, Twilight in Delhi, 1940; Anita Desai, In Custody, 1984; Khushwant Singh, Delhi: A Novel, 1990; Ruskin Bond, Delhi Is Not Far, 1994/2003; William Dalrymple, City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, 1993; Ranjana Sengupta, Delhi Metropolitan, 2007; Sam Miller, Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity, 2008; Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, The Mirror of Beauty, 2013.

  Anthologies of Essays

  Khushwant Singh (ed.), City Improbable, 2001; Mala Dayal (ed.), Celebrating Delhi, 2010; Bharati Chaturvedi (ed.), Finding Delhi, 2010; Shveta Sarda (ed. and transl.), Trickster City, 2010; Sunil Kumar, The Present in Delhi’s Pasts, 2011.

  Photographic Portraits

  Khushwant Singh and Raghu Rai, Delhi: A Portrait, 1983; Narayani Gupta and Dilip Bobb, Delhi Then & Now (n.d.); Jim Masselos and Narayani Gupta, Beato’s Delhi, 1857 and Beyond, 1997; Karoki Lewis and Charles Lew
is, Mehrauli: A View from the Qutb, 2002.

  Acknowledgements

  I first came to Delhi forty years ago, in 1979, and I have lived on its periphery (in Gurgaon) for the last fifteen. In the course of that time, I have visited the monuments and sites described here countless times. I have profited from the knowledge and insights of the many people with whom I have shared that pleasure. I cannot name them all, but I should like to thank especially the organizers and participants in a series of seminars on Delhi held in recent years at INTACH, including A.G.K. Menon, Swapna Liddle and Annabel Lopez. I thank Kishore Singh at DAG, Rahaab Allana at the Alkazi Collection of Photography, Devika Daulet-Singh of Photoink, and the Trustees of the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, for the use of images; Mrinalini Venkateswaran for her feedback on several sections; and Ranjana Sengupta, Anushree Kaushal, Saloni Mital and Ahlawat Gunjan at Penguin Random House.