TRAVEL: India Part III

NEW DELHI

Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President of India's palace.  Inherited from the British Raj, the building and all its furniture was designed and built by Sir Edwin Lutyens, ironically only some twenty years before the country became independent.

New Delhi has exemplary town planning, it is a remarkable garden city.  I can think of no other city with streets and avenues shaded by such magnificent trees.

OLD DELHI

The Jami Mashid Mosque

Right: Hamayun's Tomb, designed by the Persian architect Mirak Mirza Ghiyath, was the first garden tomb in India, commissioned by the Emperor's widow Hamida Banu Begum in 1562. Now restored by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India, work began in 1999 and was completed in 2003.  Twelve hectares of land was replanted, trees and plants include mango, lemon, neem and jasmine.  Water channels were re-laid to enable water to run in channels and the fountain to spurt.

Shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya

   

I was taken here by my friend Mitch Krites, a convert to Islam, who has been a patron and promoter of Indian craftsmanship for decades. To visit these shrines is to step into the 14th Century....

Sufi shrines are under attack from puritanical Wahabi Mullahs who strongly discourage the worship of saints.

Marble door

The monuments and adjoining tombs are undergoing extensive restoration in this extraordinary microcosm of centuries past.