This Sunday evening was a welcome respite from the usual Delhi summer. The dust storm lowered the temperature which allowed all of us a pleasant heritage walk in Lodi Garden. We were a group of about 20 enthusiasts which included architects, lecturers, lawyers and two very very young children. These heritage walks are also a great opportunity for people to interact. In fact, two of the walkers found that they lived within 50 yards of each other for past 20 years, never knowing about each other until they met on this heritage walk !

Lodi garden is actually an early 20^th century British creation, who called it the Lady Willingdon Park. Post-independence it was re-landscaped under Joseph Allen Stein. Stein also designed some of the important buildings in the neighbourhood: the IIC, the Ford Foundation are the most well known. The name Lodi Garden was also given post-Independence & comes from the fact that the most monuments belong to the reign of the Lodi kings. In the 20^th century, before the British built a new capital in Delhi, this area was a village called Khairpur. People were living in an around these very monuments. Continue Reading This Post

One of the oldest inhabited neighbourhoods in Delhi region, Mehrauli is a minefield of stories. It has the earliest capital cities of Delhi and has been continuously inhabited for almost a thousand years now. This heritage walk starts at the entrance to the Mehrauli Archaeological Park. The first group of monuments one comes across is a gateway and a recently excavated area which has a courtyard and rooms built around it. Balban’s tomb stands out amongst these ruins. This 13^th century royal tomb is the earliest building in India use the true arch as an element of architecture. Balban is known to be a ruthless king. To his credit, he managed to rule for up to 40 years (first as a vice regent and then as Sultan), a remarkable feat for times marked by frequent change of rulers. Continue Reading This Post

We started a bit later than the decided time: no one reached on time as no one seemed to know where the place was. Add to it the traffic jams in south Delhi and the result was a delay of good forty minutes. In fact, the first person to reach could do so only because he rode a bicycle and not a motor vehicle! Everyone complained that there is no signage to direct visitors to the park, until one of us pointed out the broken sandstone slab with the park’s name on it, lying on the ground. It was unanimously decided that this was in keeping with the ‘archaeological’ nature of the park and promptly stopped complaining!

A patch of land near the meeting point has been recently excavated. This is adjacent to Balban’s tomb. They have discovered a stone floor, a few cell-like structures and some graves. A couple of months back, this space was completely covered with vegetation and rocks. Now it is just ruins and heaps of mud. It is amazing to see how archaeological excavations alter an area. Continue Reading This Post