It was a lovely morning when the students and teachers of Delhi Public School, Gurgaon joined us at the Qutb complex for a heritage walk. They were students of humanities from class 11 and 12 accompanied by their Principal, Ms Aditi Misra and two senior teachers, Ms Lisa and Ms Sapna Dhawan. There was slight drizzle and breeze which made it fun to walk around the monuments. There were 4 of us from Delhi Heritage Walks: Chhavi, Divya, Kanika and Vijaya to interact with the students.

The Qutb Minar needs little introduction, so we tried to discuss the lesser known details about the complex. What is today the entrance to the site is actually part of a serai dating to the late-Mughal time. Our first stop was the Quwwat ul Islam mosque, built from material taken from temples. Some of the students had visited an active mosque earlier, so they were familiar with Islamic religious practices; others were quick to note how the sculptures were disfigured. Continue Reading This Post

It was a cloudy Sunday morning when I woke up just in time for my heritage walk. I had been very excited for a couple of days now, as this was going to be my 1^st walk as a leader. Confidence remained intact, partly being a Historian n partly because I BELONGED TO Place we were going to visit or say Chandni Chock resides in ME…

More or else everybody reached on time and met on the very first stop-Digambar Jain Lal temple. We have 8-9 stops in the Chandni Chowk heritage walk n I had to be thorough with each; its history and much more as one always expects intellectuals, educators, foreign delegates, inquisitive students ranging from class 5^th to university level to join us .Being a leader it becomes my utmost duty to be prompt to every question coming my way. Continue Reading This Post

Hauz Khas is one of the historic villages in Delhi region. And it has one of the most interesting monument complexes existing in India: the madrasa built by Firuz Shah Tughluq. ‘Hauz’ is a tank & ‘Khas’ is special or important. The name ‘Hauz Khas’ comes from the fact there existed a tank built by a king called Alauddin Khalji. The tank was originally named ‘Hauz i Alai’ after Alauddin Khalji, but later began to be called Hauz Khas. The tank still exists but in a much altered form. It now has a popular district park around it.

We started the heritage walk from the Kunzum travel café in Hauz Khas village. The monuments are located a few meters away. The madrasa is a large L-shaped building built along the tank. Once the water from the tank would have lapped at its walls; now the tank is much smaller. In fact, the Persian invader Timur, when he camped here before fighting the Delhi sultan, describes each side of the tank being more than a bow-shot long! The double storeyed madrasa is mostly in ruins now but one can imagine that it must have been a grand place. Contemporary accounts are full of praise for this complex. Continue Reading This Post

(pics by Nirmal Dayani, heritage walk enthusiast)

This heritage walk was special…we had four very young kids joining us at the Mehrauli Archaeological Park: Priyansh, Abeer, Vivaan and Ishaan. And for once, their questions outnumbered the answers available with Kanika, who was leading the walk!!!

We started at the gateway to Balban’s tomb. The area behind it was cleared recently in an archaeological excavation. Now we can see remains of a courtyard and a new rooms & graves towards the north. If one looks carefully, one can pick up shards of pottery scattered around the clearing! Balban’s tomb stands prominently against the skyline. It is in a ruined state and without a roof now, but initially would have been covered by a dome. Continue Reading This Post

Interesting Walk on a sultry evening…we were a multi-lingual and multi-national group, including two visitors from China and one from Italy. The major buildings in this garden are from the Sayyid and Lodi period. There also exist some late-Mughal structures…the garden created by the British and named after Lady Willingdon in 1936. It was renamed Lodi garden after Independence as most of the structures are from Lodi period. The walk started with an introduction about the garden. This site was originally the village of Khairpur…Britishers relocated the villagers. The first stop was Mohammad Shah’s tomb who was a ruler of Sayyid dynasty[1434-1444). This is a typical octangonal tomb…from here a path weaves along the the newly created butterfly sanctuary to Bara Gumbad…Bara Gumbad is a tall imposing building with no grave inside and there are conflicting theories about the function of the building…it is perhaps gateway to a grave of a important personon a large platform….west to the grave is a small but beautifully decorated mosque, & on the east is a pavilion that might have housed holy men/scholars/attendents attached to the mosque..to the north of this group of buildings is the Shish Gumad,a tomb of some unknown but probably important person. Continue Reading This Post