Mughal's Delhi

Humayun tomb, Purana Quila

We rented rickshaw that day. Rickshaw driver took us through the main streets full of various vehicles, people, and dust. Wrapped in dupattas and armed with a camera we shot pictures as crazy. We became a center of attention, as two sahib women in the rickshaw.

Delhi today consists of seven old cities. Subsequent authorities build up their separate settlements, which were later combined into a single city. That is why today's old Delhi is what was Shahanjahabad - from Shah Jahan that Mughal's emperor, who had built Taj Mahal. Finished in 1648, it is a seventh city.

Later the British built the so-called New Delhi, when they transferred their quarters from Calcutta in 1931.

We asked our rickshawala to take us to the Nizamudin district, whose center is darga (tomb) of sheik Nizamuddin Cisti (1238 -1325), the sufi saint. Many sultans and members of the mughal dynasty were his supporters. The emperor Humayun, second from the Great Moghols, was buried in the near. He moved the capital from Agra and built today's Old Fort (Purana Quila) in 1533.

In 1565 Humayun's wife, Bega Begum built the Mausoleum for his husband, which really is a sequence of religious buildings for the whole court of the ruler. The plan of the tomb is a typical reflection of the grave as a Muslim image of the path to paradise. Perfectly symmetrical layout of the garden with a central axis of the stream of water renders a great impression, both of aesthetic and spiritual nature.

Walking on the walls around the tomb of one member of Humayun's entourage, we saw a few green parrots and funny squirrels playing on the walls. In the vicinity of the walls people were burning trash, and in the distance you could see some people resting on the grass. Somewhere between buildings a construction emerged, which could be related to funerary buildings, or at least from this period. When we approached the Humayun's tomb, we were attacked by the whole crowd of boys dressed in school uniforms, who had just finished their tour. Later at the end of our visit we met the girls dressed in short skirts, socks, blouses, and the obligatory pink scarf, worn as dupatta. All were running towards me to say "hello!". terribly funny....

Next we went to the Old Fort, which survived only in ruins. It was already late and the museum was closed, but the ruins themselves and the park can be visited until dark, so we walked through the buildings of the fort.

After watching the Fort, we were already tired and asked rickshaw driver to take us to Conaught Place, so we can eat and make small purchases, but as it turned out later, the drivers in Delhi are reluctant to go to Conaught Place, the center of New Delhi, for the shops there are not better equipped at all and only more expensive, and the restaurants are not better, and most importantly, it is difficult for a driver to park there. Our rickshaw driver took us to another place, it's even difficult for me to say where exactly it was. There we did some shopping, and then we went to the Pindi restaurant. We ate there one of the better meals in Delhi.

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