After a short flight from Jaipur to Delhi - where security literally took my photo backpack
apart - we were ready to see the big city. We meet the guide near a Hindu temple called
Shri Mahipamardani Utsav Mandapam.
It is one temple in a 60-acre complex of temples.
Inside the temple was a large representation of Hanuman the Monkey God.
Outside the temple were prayer ribbons tied to a fence
Next was Qutub Minar
Qutub Minar is 240 feet, is in the Qutb Complex, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The construction of Qutub Minar was commissioned by Qutub-ud-Din Aibak, the founder
of the Delhi Sultanate in 1199 AD. Aibak's successor Iltutmish added three more
stores to complete the tower.
The topmost storey was damaged by lightning in 1368 A.D. and was rebuilt by
Firoz Shah Tughlaq. Firoz Shah Tughlaq built two floors one of which can be
distinguished easily as it was built of white marble.
On 1 August 1903, a major earthquake again caused serious damage to Qutub Minar.
Major Robert Smith of the British Indian Army renovated the tower in 1928 and
installed a cupola to the top of Qutub Minar. The cupola was later taken down
under instructions from Lord Haringe, then Governor General of Pakistan and
was installed to the east of Qutab Minar, where it rests now.
Detail of the Qutub Minar
The Qutub Minar is made of dark red sandstone covered with intricate carvings and verses
from the Quran. The Qutub Minar comprises several superposed flanged and cylindrical shafts,
separated be balconies carried on Muqarnas corbels. The first three stores are
made of red sandstone; the fourth and fifth and sixth stores are of marble and
sandstone.
At the foot of the tower is the Alai Darwaza (Alai Gate). This from the gate building
up to the tower.
Stone lattice in the Alai Gate
On the other side of the Qutub Minar are the ruins of a mosque
The Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, was built by
Qutbu l-Din Aibak in 1192. It is one of the earliest surviving mosques in the
Indian subcontinent. It was the first mosque built in Delhi after the Islamic conquest of India
The ruins of the mosque include several columns which do not seem to match.
According to a Persian inscription still on the inner eastern gateway, the mosque
was built by the parts taken by destruction of twenty-seven Hindu and Jain temples
More of the columns in the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque
A visitor to the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque
We then drove to the center of New Delhi - the planned city laid out by the British
There are two huge buildings forming the Secretariat Buildings various ministries are
housed in each.
Part of the government complex is the President's home - Rashtrapati Bhavan
The decision to build a residence in New Delhi for the British Viceroy was taken
after it was decided during the Delhi Durbar in 1910 that the capital of India
would be relocated from Calcutta to Delhi. The column behind the gates is Jaipur Column
added at the time the home was built.
The India Gate is down a grand mall from the President's house and the ministry buildings.
India gate is a memorial to 82,000 soldiers of the Indian Army who died
in the period 1914-21 in the First World War, in France, Flanders, Mesopotamia,
Persia, East Africa, Gallipoli and elsewhere in the Near and the Far East,
and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. 13,300 soldier's names, including some
soldiers and officers from the United Kingdom, are inscribed on the gate
In 1971, following the Bangladesh Liberation war, a small simple structure,
consisting of a black marble plinth, with reversed rifle, capped by war helmet,
bounded by four eternal flames, was built beneath the soaring Memorial Archway.
This structure, called Amar Jawan Jyoti, or the Flame of the Immortal Soldier,
since 1971 has served as India's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
East of the India Gate war memorial is a 73-foot cupola. Under the canopy on a pedestal,
there was a fifty-foot-tall (15.2 m) marble statue of King George V, in his coronation
robes. In 1960 the statue was moved to Coronation Park to join other British era statues.
A short drive to our last stop for the day - Humayun's tomb.
Humayun's tomb is the tomb of the Mughal Emperor Humayun. The tomb was commissioned
by Humayun's son Akbar in 1569. In all there are over 100 graves within the entire complex,
including many on the first level terrace, earning it the name
"Dormitory of the Mughals", since the graves are not inscribed their identification
remains uncertain.
Details of geometrical sandstone and marble inlay patterns over the
entrance, and the elevated domes and small minarets that surround the
white marble central dome.
Shadows through stone carved lattice inside Humayun's tomb
One of many rooms with symbolic markers - the bodies are buried in the ground several
floors below.
Note the symbolically cut out mihrab facing west or Mecca, over the marble lattice screen.
Most interesting were the water channels flowing on all sides of the tomb
Paradise garden is divided into four squares by paved walkways and two bisecting
central water channels, reflecting the four rivers that flow in jannat,
the Islamic concept of paradise. Each of the four squares is further divided into
smaller squares with pathways, creating into 36 squares in all, a design typical
of later Mughal gardens. The central water channels appear to be disappearing
beneath the tomb structure and reappearing on the other side in a straight line,
suggesting the Quranic verse, which talks of rivers flowing beneath the 'Garden of Paradise'.
In the same complex is the tomb and mosque of Isa Khan
Constructed in 1547, it is the tomb complex of Isa Khan Niyazi, an Afghan noble in
Sher Shah Suri's court of the Suri dynasty, who fought against the Mughals.
The octagonal tomb is positioned within an octagonal garden, which was built
during his own lifetime.
It later served as a burial place for the entire family of Isa Khan
Light on the Isa Kahn Tomb
End of the day and one last picture as the sun set - this is Isa Khan's
mosque, across his tomb.