Walking in Dilli

Stepping into history

Once I got to know that I will stay on Lodhi Road, during the short trip, I was clear I had to make the best of the opportunity. Chance Pe Dance is not exactly a set of words used to bring out a positive act; another perspective however is that life is all about taking chances and opportunities.

The fog, smog, pollution and whatever else it was did not deter me from walking to the Safdarjung Tomb on an early morning. With the very low number of people present then, the place had a separate feel. We are so tuned to having people around us, especially when moving in these cities, that their absence has an impact on how we see and feel the place.

What I love at these places is that one can touch and feel the stones and walls; caress history. I climbed up, walked along the periphery and wondered if it was the boundary even then. What then lay on the other side? These questions of how would the place have been then I ever have as I walk these places.

By Pranav Singh - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20991114 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Safdarjung#/media/File:Tomb_of_Safdarjung,_New_Delhi.jpg

Sitting in silence and watching the parakeets have fun I recalled walking the Humayun Tomb complex in the rains. What fun it was to see water enjoying as it found its way around the geometrically laid stones while the stones too got refreshed. The entire place seemed alive then!

Timing on the website had said, from sunrise to sunset, and the smiling person at the ticket-counter gave me the same answer. Whatever the reason, a smart bureaucrat at work or an ancient practise, it is ever nice to come across such parameters.

I could not fathom why the police cars were parked at the Tomb’s entrance. It reminded me of a similar sight, albeit private vehicles, at the Kohima Cemetery. There they had successfully massacred the peace and calm the place stands for. At times like these I wish cars suddenly became a taboo, a socially unacceptable phenomenon.

Evening I met a friend at Lodhi Gardens and we walked its paths fuelled by random conversations. The paths were neatly laid unlike our unstructured and free-flowing conversations. Amitav Ghosh has described Lodhi Gardens as one of the finest urban gardens in the world.  A day after our walk I was told that the place could be referred to as a ‘dense forest’ given the definition put to use by the Forest Survey of India in determining forest cover! This is a place so elite that parking spaces and toilets are not only free but also clean, I was once told. It would take me a while to comprehend that those in power seldom pay.

Lodhi garden is where stones from history meet elites of the day. We crossed structures pre-dating the Mughal Era; structures which Kites and Mynas seem to have fallen in love with. Glimpse of the Athpula, connect of today with Mughal Emperor Akbar, reminded me of the sluice gates at Satpula. We had visited Satpula, few months ago, during a curated walk that had begun from the Khirki Masjid.

By AKS.9955 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44305989

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodi_Gardens#/media/File:Sikandar_Lodi%27s_tomb_wall.JPG

Will people be singing today asked a friend as we moved towards the Nizamuddin Dargah. Ho bhi sakta hai aur nahi bhi, I recall responding. Once at the venue, songs from Dama Dum Mast Kalandar to Rangreza kept us glued. Songs, which also talked of playing Holi. The underlying theme, however, as another friend pointed was absolute surrender. During the previous trip I had seen singers wait in a queue of sorts in groups of three. One group sang with person at centre also putting the harmonium to use, and after a few songs, as they took rest, other three took over.

How they are able to create this ambience with just their vocal chords, claps and a harmonium is still a mystery for me after couple of trips. Answer perhaps lies in what I was told at Naggar, Himachal Pradesh, ‘some places have energy’. Unlike what one has come across in the ‘formal’ setting the singers were not affected by all the chaos around, it was all a part of a larger ambience. Life as it is, free flowing, without the need for an externally imposed discipline. Wet chaos of the sea itself and not the dry silence of an island within.

Rest of the trip was equal fun from the book-stores at Khan Market to the Daulat ki Chaat somewhere in Dariba Kalan. Pamela Timms’ got me keen on the Daulat ki Chaat but more on that some other time.