wandering among the tombs

i set out early, but already the scorch of the sun was setting in. i walked down these almost empty new delhi avenues, towards humayun’s tomb, the stream of traffic on my right, the blank high walls surrounding various very important (or so it seemed) offices and institutes of various kinds on my left. my map said it would be simple, a straight shot down zakir hussain marg, but somewhere in the middle of that i got lost in the maze below some gargantuan flyover, a tangle of roads going off in so many directions i became dizzy... a few trial and error turns and much frustration and suspicious speculating on (angrily) why this city is made for cars not people later, i made it.

humayun’s tomb, isa khan’s tomb, barber’s tomb, a whole mess of mausoleums. humayun’s tomb itself is set in the midst of recently restored gardens, grass and trees set out on a kind of grid run thru by narrow marble-lined passageways of running water punctuated by pools and fountains. raised on a platform in the center of these gardens, humayun’s tomb rises up all majestic and grand, clothed in pink and white marble. climbing up the steep stairs into it, i circled the outside, peering in thru its many jalis (stone-carved screens) til i got to the opening. inside it was simple and spare, a huge space, still grand of course but with few details, empty of any kind of fancy decorations... in the middle stood the cenotaph itself. and in the many side-rooms, more of them, cenotaph after cenotaph, appearing mostly in clusters, lined up, with inscriptions in arabic (unless it was urdu or persian?) calligraphy

i wandered from there to the other tombs in the compound, more cenotaphs, more jalis, variations on style of domes, shape, decoration... none comparable to humayun’s tomb in striking-ness. really, most of the other ones were crumbling apart. of the whole complex, i think it is the external view of humayun’s tomb that is the best part...

i left, crossing the street and with a turn, following the signpost, found myself thrown into the sudden congestion and crowding of these back lanes full of butchers bread-friers and really i am not sure what else, was trying to avoid stepping into some pools of goat blood running to onto the sidewalk and avoid the eyes of the people all around me and looking. after stopping to ask one paan-walla i find the lane leading to hazrat nizamuddin aulia dargah, the shrine and burial site of the renowned sufi saint nizam-ud-din. other famous individuals are also buried there, or in the immediate vicinity, among them mirza ghalib and amir khusro. the attention of sellers of various prayer paraphernalia is almost too much to bear, so i rush along the narrow lane leading into the dargah at a heated pace, past all the “hello ma’ams” and “please, pleases”...

thru a jalis i try to look into amir khusro’s tomb, i see only a bunch of men in pale-toned salwar kameez sitting beside some kind of entrance, on the white marble floor. i move on to the shrine itself, glittering and rainbow and gorgeous (no photos allowed), a trio of qawwals sitting out front below a colorful canopy singing their songs, amidst a small group of men mostly, around the sides of the shrine were crowds of women, not allowed into the interior (only men, please) praying as best as they could at the distance... i would have liked to stay longer, but the attention of too many eyes made me feel too awkward and out-of-place so after a brief circle of the shrine itself, and a moment of listening to the music, i left, out past all the beseeching voices of the flower and sweet sellers, back out to the main road. next stop, lodi gardens.

i think really lodi gardens was the first thing that really got me interested in delhi, the first time i came here. my first day in delhi, after a lunch at the cafeteria at habitat center with another fulbrighter, i was left with an empty afternoon to occupy. having been confined only to my defense colony hotel room for the last day i was hungry to see something, anything... and lodi gardens was right down the road. i didn’t know what i was expecting, but the sight of these peaceful open spaces with well-groomed grass, palm trees, and unexplained old ruins scattered about the grounds was a revelation to an eye used to the uninspired gardens and parks of kolkata, with their tacky shrubbery and kangaroos waste bins. this time i came armed with a map and a book, telling me where and what these crumbling old tombs were. washed out by the forces of nature and the passage of time, thick with bird droppings, these tombs felt their age... some beautiful stone-carving, some odd tiles left here and there, pigeons perched on ledges and flying above you circling below the dome...

after this, home, water, a ten minute nap. then, wireless cafe, lunch with molly and another fulbrighter from the good old days in kolkata. and then four more hours of addiction... two pots of coffee, two booked plane tickets, numerous emails and newspaper articles and innumerable checkings of facebook later i packed up my computer and caught the first rickshaw home, at the very onset of sunset.