Connought Place - Delhi's Heart

About two weeks back, we had some work to do in Bengali Market, which is near CP [well, CP is going to remain CP, however much the government tries to rename it to Rajiv Chowk]. The work done, we decided to go to CP for lunch. After the lunch, we just strolled about. Anyone who has been to CP will probably vouch for it - there is no place like CP to shop, and even window shopping is a lot of fun.

Pigeons having a feast of corn and barley

By late afternoon, we were tired of walking. The sun played hide-and-seek with the clouds, and the weather seemed ideal to sit and relax in the Central Park. With its well maintained lawns [though how I wish people would restrain from littering these], it is indeed a wondful gift of Delhi Metro to the Delhites. From our comfortable spot, we watched the bustle in the markets, people enjoying a day out on the weekly holiday, and a foriegner playing catch with two little Indian kids in the amphitheatre.

Activity - in the market and fun - in the park

In spite of the large lawns, the Central Park had only a few wilted flowers - which was somewhat disappointing, as this was the season when the flowers are in full bloom in northern India. But I did love the lamp-posts. :-)

The lamps

As we walked towards the Palika parking, where we parked our car, I espied some flowers atop the shops in the Palika market (the ones at the ground level, which lie above the underground market). I saw some people going up there, and insisted on going there too [I am almost crazy about all kinds of flowers!]. This turned out to be a roof-top garden, and this one had a spectrum of colorful flowers!

Flowers in the roof-top garden above Palika Market

The sun sets over CP

I just cant help wondering how magnificent the Connought Circle would have looked when Lutyen first built it - imposing in pristine white, sans the over-towering buildings in the backdrop and the ugly hoardings on its facade. Koii lauta de beete hue din ...

Yet Another Flower Festival

We happened to visit another flower festival, this time at NOIDA stadium. It was nowhere near as wonderful as the one at Garden of Five Senses, but still ..... flowers are always beautiful!

At the entry point of the area marked for the flower show, these animals welcomed us. They were nice, even though a little funny :)

Elephant with a garland

A bull (the eyes are blue flowers, not color)

The cutest one - the Giraffe

I love dahlias - so colorful and so big

And pansies - specially the white ones

The hustle and bustle

Garden of Five Senses

Garden of Five Senses or Saidullajab Garden is located near Saket in New Delhi. I was interested in visiting it since it had been constructed a few years earlier, but didn’t manage to do so for quite some time. The first time Nitin and I visited the garden last year (during our pre-digital days ;-) ), the spring was almost at its end, so there there were not very many flowers in bloom. However, we were quite impressed by the partially landscaped garden spread over quite a large area. An idle weekend in Feb, we made another impromptu visit to the garden, expecting a beautiful flowering season. Our expectations were more than fulfilled – the place was a riot of colors – a flower festival was on!!!

Some interesting sculptures enhance the charm of the place.

The huge wind-chime in the centre of the pond looks beautiful. At the time of the flower festival, the water was covered with flowers floating on it.

Here we saw the most amazing Dahlias.


This was the first time I saw a Japanese miniature garden.

The flower arrangements included an assortment of a wide variety of beautiful flowers - Zerbera, Lily, Ribbon flower, Rose (some pics posted here). The others were Pansy, Carnation, Bell flower, Gladiola (and many other names that I forgot!)

Pansies come in many beautiful color combinations, but the ones I loved most were these white and purple ones.

Then there were these colorful arrangements.




And here are some violets and carnations looking pretty.

A visit to Qutub Minar

In the six-and-a-half years that I have lived in NCR, one-and-a-half of them at IIT, I had never seen Qutub Minar up close. The minar could be clearly seen from the roof of my IIT hostel, and I had zoomed right around it numerous times, going to or coming from Gurgaon via Mehrauli-Gurgaon road. But what did this tallest stone tower in India look like from a close distance ? We decided to find out on a lazy sunday afternoon - the first day of year 2006, the last day of our week long vacation.

The parking at the site was inadequate and a chaotic mess. The entry fee of Rs 10/- for Indian citizens is nominal. As is the case with most other sights in India, the entry fee for foriegners is considerably higher at $5 or Rs 250/-. This is a trend that keeps me wondering - India would perhaps be one of the rare nations to extort (or should we say penalise) visitors for wishing to view its treasures.

The first thing that struck us as we entered the compound was the rush. Having shown little interest ourselves in this piece of history so far, we were least prepared to see the crowds thronging the place. But there they were - a number of groups, with families or friends, some enjoying the sight of the structures, others basking in the warm sunlight in the lush green lawns.
The sight that greeted us was that of a majestic Minar, standing tall into the bright blue sky, towering above a few other relics of the bygone era. At the immediate left was the Alai Darwaza. To the further left, and towards the right were passageways with carved pillars supporting their roofs.

Alai Darwaza is a magnificient gateway with walls of carved stone, arched gates on all four sides and a tall roof with a dome, a very typical structure of the mughal architecture.

As we entered the Alai darwaza, through the left archway, we could see the tomb of Imam Zamim. It is small, but beautiful. Unfortunately, and according to me, sinfully, the interiors of the tomb have been vandalized by some of the visitors.

Exiting from the opposite archway, we saw the outside wall (which was constructed as the actual entrance to the minar) of Alai Darwaza, adorned with carved stone pieces.

From this vantage point, we got to see the Qutub Minar in the glow of the afternoon sun. As we strolled in the Qutub complex, we were fascinated by the ruins of the buildings and gateways. We captured the Qutub Minar from different angles.

To the northeast of Minar is the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, which consists of a rectangular courtyard, enclosed by cloisters supported by intricately carved pillars.

As we looked closely, we were surprised to see traditional hindu designs on the pillars and the walls. We could also see on the walls, an impression of the idols seen in hindu and jain temples, though with disfigured faces. On one piece we could also make out an eroded image of Ganesha.We were excited by our "discovery" and made a guess that this mosque must have been built by demolishing an old temple. It was only later we learnt the reason of presence of hindu architecture in this mosque was that the mosque had been constructed using columns and structures from 27 hindu and jain temples demolished by Qutbu'd-Din Aibak.

Also in the complex is the tomb of Iltutmish, a square chamber with beautifully carved stone on the entrance as well as in the interior.

Walking in the complex, we could see more buildings (or probably, ruins) of ancient times nearby. Although these were once a part of the Qutub complex, they are now outside the complex wall and not accessible to visitors of Qutub.