Back in Delhi: Qutab Minar and more

I’ve managed to get to Delhi three separate times on this trip through India, Bhutan, and Nepal. This time, the highlight was Qutab Minar, a stunning sandstone brick tower dating from the 13th century. Along with its surrounding monuments, this UNESCO World Heritage Site might even be the highlight of all the beautiful things I’ve seen in India. I might have been more impressed than I was at the Taj Mahal.

Getting back to Delhi

It was no simple matter to get to Delhi from Kathmandu. Our IndiGo flight was scheduled to depart at 10:50 am, which would have put us on the ground in Delhi around 12:30. We got to the airport at 08:00. (Just two of us from the Nepal tour are on this pre-trip, me and a gentleman from New Mexico named Artie.) When we checked in for our flight, the agent told us there was a one-hour delay. No problem.

Well, the one hour turned into four hours. It seems bad fog in Delhi was preventing our aircraft from leaving to fly to Kathmandu. I kept checking FlightAware to see the status, and the time kept getting pushed back.

We were finally on board at 14:15. But we didn’t take off until 15:30. And by the time we landed, got through immigration, got our luggage (Artie’s bag came right away; mine was probably the next-to-last bag to come out), found our driver and our trip leader, Dil, and got to the hotel, it was 19:30.

The Lalit

Our hotel, The Lalit, was stunning. It’s probably one of the top hotels in Delhi. The lobby was like an art gallery. My room on the 22nd floor was huge, and the breakfast buffet was a mile long.

The hotel is also in a great location, close to Connaught Place, where there are a lot of shops and restaurants. We went to a great classic Indian restaurant that evening: The Embassy. I had Malabar fish curry on Dil’s recommendation, and it was scrumptious. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture.)

Orientation walk

The next moorning (yesterday), Dil took us on an orientation walk around the neighborhood. The surprise highlight of that was Ugrasen’s Stepwell. We were just passing it by when the guy with the key came and opened it up. So we were able to go in and see it.

Gandhi Smriti

Later in the morning we visited Gandhi Smriti, a museum at the house where Gandhi spent his final days and where he was assassinated on January 30, 1948. (Smriti is a Sanskrit word meaning “that which is remembered.”)

The museum itself had many displays and information about Gandhi’s life, interspersed with photos, memorabilia, and quotations.

Qutab Minar

When I was previously in Delhi, I checked to see what was on the agenda for this part of the tour, and since Qutab Minar was listed, I skipped it earlier. I’m glad I saved it for yesterday, because as the last thing I saw in Delhi, it is also the thing that made the strongest impression on me. In addition to being such a beautiful monument, there’s so much interesting history there.

History

I’ve learned a lot about India on this trip. One thing I didn’t know before is how various Muslim dynasties ruled the Indian subcontinent from the 13th to the 19th centuries. For the most part (but with some exceptions), Hindus were free to practice their faith during that period. And I’ll have more to write about the coexistence of Hinduism and Islam here in my next post. (I’m now in Amritsar, epicenter of the struggle around the partition of India and Pakistan.)

Anyway, Muslims first came to power here right around the beginning of the 13th century, after Muhammad Ghori, ruler of the Ghurid Empire in what is now Afghanistan, routed the Rajput confederacy, a group of Hindu kingdoms, in 1192. Almost immediately, construction on a mosque began under Qutb ud-Din Aibak, one of Ghori’s generals who was in charge of the Ghurid territories in northern India. Stones and columns from 27 Hindu temples were used to build the mosque, which sits on the site of one of those demolished temples. The workers were Hindu, and they didn’t know anything about Muslim architecture, so there are many hybrid elements. 

Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque was the first built in Delhi and is the oldest surviving example of Ghurid architecture in the Indian subcontinent.

The Minar is both a minaret for the mosque and a victory tower. Its construction dates from 1199 to 1220.

Monuments at the site

Qutab Minar is the most significant monument, of course. At 72.5 meters (237.8 feet), it is the tallest brick tower in the world.

Alai Darwaza is particularly significant because the Hindu builders didn’t know how to create keystone arches or domes. This is the first structure in India to incorporate those features.

What else I saw in Delhi yesterday

Lodhi Colony

Artie and I both expressed an interest in murals, so Dil took us to Lodhi Colony. This was a planned residential community dating from the 1940s, one of the last residential projects of the British Raj.

Starting in 2015, a project to decorate the neighborhood with murals kicked off.

Lodhi Garden

Lodhi Colony took its name from nearby Lodhi Garden, which in turn took its name from the Lodi dynasty. This dynasty ruled from 1451 to 1526 and left behind some rare examples of architecture from the period.

In addition to these monuments, Lodhi Garden was chock full of interesting birds and other critters.

The other highlight of my day in Delhi

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Yes, there are plenty more photos. Please have a look!