30 Friday Lifestyle | Travel Friday, October 13, 2017

heart of the maze of bustling alleyways and wholesale markets is the landmark Jama Masjid, arguably the most perfectly propor- tioned in , and also its largest. The street food of Chandni Chowk is leg- endary amongst Delhiites, with Karim’s top- ping the list for meaty Mughlai meals, and Gali Paratha Wali for Punjabi paratha break- fasts.

Navigating the colonial corners of New If Old Delhi was the soul of the Mughal city, New Delhi was where the British stamped their identity onto India. Mughal power was already in decline when the British Resident arrived in 1803, but it was only in 1911 that King George V anointed Delhi as the capital of British India - a rather lonely obelisk inside Coronation Park marks the spot where he made the announcement. Shortly after, the construction of New Delhi, the eighth and last city developed under foreign rule, began.

Dusk falls over India Gate, the centrepoint of Lutyen’s Delhi

The towering walls of Tughlaqabad century BCE hints at far older history. Within Mathura Rd, near the National Stadium. On assuming power at the turn of the 14th bowling distance on Bahadur Shah Zafar The octagonal jewel box of the Sher century, the founder of the next dynasty, Marg, the Feroz Shah Cricket ground was Mandal was the site of Sher Shah’s fatal fall, Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq, built yet another built in 1883, making it the second oldest and nearby is the magnificent Qila-e-Kuhna citadel in the hills to the southeast of Delhi. cricket ground in India, after the Eden Mosque, finished in red sandstone and gleam- The ruins today are overgrown and largely Gardens in Kolkata. Towards the end of the ing white marble. A sound and light show illu- forgotten; even the imposing Tughlaqabad century, the Tughlaqs made way for the minates the ruins daily (except Fridays) from Fort - home to some impressive Tughlag-era Sayyids and Lodis, who left a lavish legacy of February to April. While here, you can duck You may have the sprawling ruins of forgotten tombs - is overrun by goats and weeds. The elegant tombs and mausoleums, scattered south to the green surrounds of Delhi Zoo, or Tughlaqabad all to yourself. next sultan, Mohammad bin Tughlaq, was around the peaceful grounds of the Lodi check out what is taking place at the Pragati prone to flights of fancy, and shifted his capi- Gardens near Khan Market. Look out for the Maidan, a 150-acre exhibition space that Named for the British architect credited tal to soon after, but he returned uncharacteristically plain tomb of Ibrahim hosts the annual India International Trade Fair with fashioning the Delhi order of architec- to build Jahanpanah, another mighty city now Lodi, whose defeat at the hands of Babur every November. ture, Lutyens Delhi is where the seat of Indian lost to history. The Khirki Mosque, a geomet- finally ushered in the Mughal era in 1526. democracy lies today. Most visitors know rical marvel accessed from a narrow alley The , Finding Shajahanabad Connaught Place and India Gate, but the sur- across the road from Select Citywalk Mall in in the streets of Old Delhi rounding district is an orderly spread of leafy Saket, is one of few tangible surviving relics. heart of short-lived Shergarh The rule of Humayun, the second Mughal In 1648, Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal boulevards lined with elegant bungalows, Fascinating Firoz Shah Kotla Emperor, was interrupted briefly by Sher emperor, built Delhi’s seventh city and called stately homes, grand offices, museums and art it Shajahanabad, now popularly known as Old galleries. With the exit of the British in 1947, Firoz Shah, last of the Tughlaq monarch, Shah Suri, a feisty Afghan soldier who Delhi. An aesthete by nature, he bequeathed Indian politicians took over control of the moved his seat to the banks of the Yamuna stormed into town in 1540. Humayun’s half- Delhi many of its most majestic monuments. grand civic buildings along Rajpath. Today, River in the middle of the 14th century, but finished fort, Dinpanah, was captured and The Red Fort, from whose sandstone ram- the flag of independent India flies proudly unlike in most of Delhi’s vanished cities, the renamed Shergarh, but just 15 years later, parts Indian Prime Ministers address the over Parliament House and Rashtrapati ruins he left behind are still an active place of Sher Shah tripped down the stairs of his pri- nation on Independence Day, is Delhi’s signa- Bhawan, but tucked behind is another worship. Every Thursday, the gardens vate library and died from his injuries, putting ture building, the seat of the Mughals until the reminder of Delhi’s richly layered history, the enveloping the atmospheric palace ruins teem the Mughals firmly back in the saddle. Sher last emperor was exiled by the British in 1858. Mughal Gardens, created by Lutyens but with worshippers headed to the mosque at Shah’s architectural efforts, collectively To see more Shajahanabad wonders, duck inspired by the grand civic gardens of the the heart of the compound. A pillar carved on referred to as the Purana Qila, are mostly in into the bazaars of Chandni Chowk. At the Mughal empire. -(www.lonelyplanet.com) the orders of the emperor Ashoka in the 3rd good repair, set in expansive grounds off

Delhi’s Jama Masjid floats in the haze Purana Qila, the walled citadel of Sher Shah