Making the Most of a Visit to the Capital—and Getting my Uzbekistan Visa

Maundy Thursday, April 18, 2019

New Delhi

Making the Most of a Visit to the Capital—and Getting my Uzbekistan Visa

     Namaste from New Delhi!

     I awoke at about 6.30 am in the capital of India and savored those few seconds between sleep and wakefulness as I became aware of my surroundings. I had not even switched on the TV in my room although there was one. I blogged and then had a long chat with Llew before I got myself organized for a lovely luxurious shower. I kept my papers ready for my return to the Embassy today and knew that I would also need to get to a computer, first thing, to make another wire transfer. But first...brekkie!

     I found my way to the Fulbright Guest House Cafe where I ordered a masala omelette and two slices of buttered toast with a glass of lassi. Then I made my way up to the Fulbright office where Anupam watched as I did the wire transfer.  Thankfully, it went through at the first try—so the nightmares of the previous day were already history. Armed with the printed receipt and a couple of photocopies of my documents, I said goodbye to Anupam and went off on my border-crossing mission with a whole lot of hope in my heart.

     At the gate I found a rickshaw and told the driver where to take me. He found it easily enough and in a short while, I was at the Embassy where the same chowkidar of yesterday greeted me warmly and took all my papers. This time, since I had the bank payment receipts, it was smooth sailing. My passport was submitted and I left after being told to return at 5.00 pm after calling at 4.00 pm to confirm, that all was in order. Phew! Feeling the massive weight fall off my weary shoulders was such a relief and with that chore accomplished, I resolved to enjoy Delhi—having been awarded a bonus day in the capital.

  

Off to see Humayun’s Tomb:

     So I have to tell you that one of my favorite Moghul architectural monuments is the Tomb of Humayun, son of Babur and father of the greatest Moghul Emperor of them all—Akbar The Great.  Coming as he did swiftly on the heels of his illustrious father must have been an unbearable burden to this nondescript man for he really had some huge shoes to fill. And as if the responsibilities of his life were not enough, he died young. It is the one detail I remember clearly from my Eighth Grade Mogul History lessons—he fell while tumbling down his library stairs and died! 

     So while his life might not have amounted to much, his mausoleum is a landmark that left an indelible impression on my own mind—even though, mind you, I had never actually visited it. I fell in love with Humayun’s Tomb when I was sixteen and on a family trip—our parents were taking us to Delhi so that we could bring to life the Mogul history lessons we had learned and also so that we could appreciate the glorious architecture of our country’s capital.

      Humayun’s Tomb is located in Hazrat Nizamuddin which is one of the oldest parts of Delhi and one that was crammed with Islamic monuments built during the heyday of this erstwhile dynasty. If you travel by train from Bombay to Delhi, which I have done umpteen times—and which I did for the first time when I was 16–just past Delhi Cantonment Station and en route to Delhi Central station, the train which goes really slow at this point, passes by the stunning edifice that is Humayun’s Tomb on your left hand side. I remember seeing it, for the first time then and my jaw dropped. It is simply breath taking. And since you are literally just a few meters from it (as the railway tracks lie just beyond its property), you are literally up close and personal with one of the best Mogul monuments on the Indian sub-continent.      

     But, trouble is, I had never really actually visited this place as it had lain rough with neglect for centuries. It is only because of the work of recent Indian scholars in the field of Mogul architecture such as Ruby Lal (whom I had met at the East-West Center at the University of Hawai’i) that this amazing building has been seen and valued for what it really is: an architectural precursor to the Taj Mahal. Yes, the Taj Mahal. Because the only ways in which the two monuments differ is that Humayun’s Tomb is made of local yellow and pink sandstone and is devoid of the four minarets while Shah Jehan’s masterpiece, the Taj Mahal, is made of pure white Makharana marble from Afghanstan and is flanked by the minarets in its four corners. Other than these minor differences, there is nothing that makes Humayun’s tomb less arresting or significant than its more famous clone in Agra.

In 2006, the Aga Khan Foundation decided to devote its money and energies to a complete restoration of this mausoleum. They were joined in this endeavor by the Dorab Tata Foundation and over a period of almost fifteen years, this monument had been resurrected from the neglected pages of architectural history and is shining in its own light as the fascinating building it is—no longer a footnote in Moghul history but an entire chapter in itself.

      The vast surrounding gardens have also been lovingly tended and restored so that one passes through acres of emerald-green lawns before one walks through the grand darwaza (just as one does at the Taj) to come upon the grandeur of this building. I was mesmerized when I set eyes on it and I can tell you that I was not the only one: a teenaged boy who saw it for the first time, said, “Wow” and I was immediately reminded of the teenager I once was when I had said “Wow” upon seeing it for the first time so many decades ago from a passing train. 

     In so many ways, I was reminded of my multiple trips to the Taj Mahal in Agra: for this building, built at least one hundred years before the Taj to house the remains of Akbar’s father and Shah Jehan’s great grandfather, is so similar to the Taj  that every experience you have, from mounting the steep and very high stone steps from the base to the pedestal platform upon which the domed mausoleum stands  to actually standing right beneath the central dome on the inside below the main chandelier where the marble tombstone of Humayun is placed, is identical to being in Agra. Just below his marble gravestone is his actual grave which lies in the ground—not visible or open to the public. And as opposed to the Taj, which houses only the remains of Nur, beloved wife of Shah Jehan and, after is death, his own tomb, this one is chocful  of Moghul tombstones containing the remains of a vast number of Moghul family members of Humayun’s dynasty all denoted with marble monuments of varying size and ornamentation. 

     Meanwhile, if you look above, you will be enthralled by the optical illusions created in the domes by intricate paintings of flowers and a great deal of jali-work: carved screens made from sheets of sandstone (in the Taj Mahal, all the jali-work is made of marble sheets). The one thing missing here that is found in abundance at the Taj is pietra dura or inlaid stone work filled with precious and semi-precious stones. I saw similarities in the ceiling ornamentation with the macarabe work I had seen in the Al-Hambra in Granada, Spain, and I was so excited. Needless to say, I took loads of photographs. Nothing was more exciting to me than to actually walk inside Humayun’s Tomb which, for endless decades, I have admired only from the outside.

  Before leaving the complex, I sauntered into the architectural monuments surrounding the Tomb: there was the Tomb and a mosque built by one of Human’s ministers, Isa Khan—and believe me, the mausoleum was simply exquisite—it is one of the few octagonal structures of its kind. It is called the Neel Gumbad (Blue Mausoleum) because small cobalt blue tiles covered the 'chatris' or umbrella motifs that decorate it. And inside, I found about six different raised oblong grave stones. The accompanying mosque had many lovely mihrabs inside but it is no longer in use as a house of worship.

Off to Scour the Streets of Old Delhi:

     Thrilled with my very first sightseeing excursion into Mogul times, I took a rickshaw and told the driver to take me to Khan Market which was fairly close by as I wanted to see if I could buy myself a cheap electronic fan that will be indispensable to me during the next two months as the heat in Bombay mounts and it becomes unbearable outdoors . I had a lovely chatty driver who asked me what exactly I wanted to buy in Khan Market and when I told him I wanted the cheap Chinese hand-held fan, he told me I was in the wrong place as Khan Market is an upscale shopping center mainly for designer clothes. 

     Becoming fascinated with Mogul architecture at Humayun’s Tomb, I asked my driver if the Red Fort was very far away and he told me that it would be the best place to buy what I wanted. You need Lajpat Rai Market, he said. This is directly opposite the Red Fort at Chandni Chowk! What a bright driver! And what a God Sent he was!

     So, of course, I then told him to drive me there and after passing through some of the most striking parts of New Delhi (of which I simply could not get enough), we made the transition into Old Delhi—the Delhi of the Moguls. 

     We passed by the gorgeous Jama Masjid also built by Shah Jehan, the largest mosque in the world and capable of accommodating 20,000 worshipers at the same time! And then we were in the midst of the chaos and congestion of Old Delhi and the maze of bylanes that makes up Chandni Chowk! The massive sandstone edifice of the Red Fort was on my right hand side for what seemed like miles as we passed by its bright red ramparts and arrived, finally, at its arresting entrance, scene of the annual Republic Day Parades. It was all too exciting for me and I was simply singing in my soul!

Shopping For and Finding my Fans!

     Dropping me off at the right spot, the driver made off and I went on foot though some of the most congested parts of Chandni Chowk, marveling as I trod through its streets, at the Islamic tendency to live in close communal quarters with neighbors. I have seen such a penchant for cheek-by-jowl habitation from the souks of Dubai and Abu Dhabi to the casbahs of Morocco; from the al-Baisin in Granada to the bazaars of Istanbul and Cairo. And here, right in my own beloved India, is the same labyrinth of streets that make up Islamic common living—similar also to the streets of Dongri and Bhendi Bazaar in Bombay. I loved it all. 

     And then, guess what, as I walked from one shop to the next, keeping my eyes sharply peeled for my fan, I found it! And at the same price as I had paid for it on the roadside outside Crawford Market in Bombay, i.e. Rs.150 for each! I now know that the life of these things is very short indeed—and so I bought two. At that price, you could not go wrong. So there it was: another mission accomplished and the glories of Delhi’s Mogul splendor all done and dusted in the bargain! I stopped outside the Red Fort to take pictures and firmly told the cycle rickshaw fellows who kept pestering me to ask if I wanted a tour of Chandni Chowk that I was headed home.

Riding Delhi’s Metro System: 

     The rickshaw driver had pointed out the metro station to me and so I decided that I would cram in one more experience: I would take a ride on Delhi’s Metro system and see what it was like. I was headed to the National Gallery of Modern Art but since I did not know which was the metro stop closest to it, I pulled out my google maps and found out that it was Khan Market on the Blue Line which was on the same line at which I found myself.

     So I bought a single ticket for Rs. 30 from the lady who also gave me a metro map and, believe me, within seconds, I thought I was in Shanghai again. The Delhi Metro system is an exact replica of the one in China. It is immaculately clean (spitting carries a Rs. 500 fine and everyone is on CCTV—so there is no question of going undetected). The platforms are spacious and brightly lit and the trains slide silently in and out of the stations to offer commuting of the most pleasant kind. Now if Bombay is only able to reproduce this sort of system in the grid that it is currently creating, I will be one happy camper when the work is done and the system is up and running. 

     My stop (Khan Market) was about 7 stops away and so I had a chance to take in the inside of the trains which run right through with no internal doors. There are no special Ladies compartments but with CCTV in every car, no one dares misbehave. I was enchanted. The one thing I found missing was clearly marked platform names—but there is an electronic band running in every car which announces the name of the next station and tells you on which side the doors would open. I was ever so happy that I chose to try out Delhis’ Metro system. It is truly a boon.

Finding the National Gallery of Modern Art:

     The National Gallery of Modern Art (my next port of call) was a good mile from the Khan Market subway station—so I chose to take a rick to get there. You pay nothing less than Rs. 50 for the shortest rickshaw ride—and the drivers do not run by meter. One of the drivers told me that the reason they do not is because the price of gas is double that of Bombay and going by the meter runs them to huge loses. Hence, they tell you at the outset what they will charge and the rule of thumb is to bring them down by 25%. I actually got quite adept at it and most of the drivers were really nice to me and exceedingly honest. 

     The driver knew exactly where to take me and in about ten minutes, I was at the entrance of the museum. I would certainly not have found it on foot.

Exploring the National Gallery of Modern Art:

     Unlike its Bombay branch, which has the same name and is located opposite the Prince of Wales Museum, this one does actually have a permanent collection. I do not recall visiting this place previously and I was so excited to be here because it promised me a superb capsule summary of the work of significant Indian artists from the middle of the 19th century to the present. But by then it was 2.00 am and I was famished. The museum Cafe would be the best place to get a meal. Sadly, it seemed to be under renovation and all it could offer me were Punjabi samosas and a room-temperature bottle of Coke. It would have to suffice. Taking my food outside, I sat under the spreading arms of a peepul tree and ate but, for my pains, I was badly bitten by mosquitoes. One of the things I have found out about Delhi is that all the greenery, though super appealing, breeds mosquitoes and as it appears that the city is never fumigated, they seem to proliferate everywhere. 

    I escaped from that mosquito-infested haven as quickly as I could and began my study of the glorious art work inside. For just Rs.20, the entry fee could not have been better value for money. It began with the mid-19th century when the work of British colonials such as Thomas Daniel and Tilly Kettle had brought to their compatriots at home, the exotic grandeur of the Indian sub-continent. Their oil paintings are ravishing and I feasted my eyes on them. Company Paintings, produced under the patronage of the East Indian Company and therefore named after them followed. I also saw the work of the early Indian indigenous artists such as Raja Ravi Varma (whose work I had first gotten to know when I was a teenager on a trip to Trivandrum with my parents) and to M.V. Dhurandhar (my college classmate Kavita’s grand-father) whose work I first got to know only six months ago when I attended his retrospective in Bombay.        

      From there, over three fabulous floors of amazing work, where interior architecture went hand in hand with the contemporary aesthetic of India’s most important painters, I saw the work of the Bengali School represented by works of Rabindranath Tagore, Abinandanda Tagore, Gagendranath Tagore, Jamini Roy (whose style is so lovably distinctive), Nandalal Bose and others from the Shantiniketan School that Rabindranath had founded. I also saw the work of the Bombay Progressive Artists Group which included the work of F.N. Souza, Akbar Padamsee, S.H. Rasa, Tyeb Mehta (my friend Shahnaz’s uncle), K.N. Hebbar, M.F. Hussain, K. H. Ara, etc. And there were loads and loads of works by Amrita Sher-Gill—again, so distinctive, you  would know her style anywhere. For me, it was like taking a refresher course on contemporary Indian art and assessing the extent to which it was influenced by the raging Western movements of the time in the work of Picasso and Braque. I adored it all and seriously wish I had more time to really linger over the special canvasses that actually spoke to me. 

     But after scaling three floors and seeing it all, it was close to 4.00pm and I had to get on with my evening. I honestly could not have made better use of my day but there was one thing I really wanted to do: I needed to call the Embassy to find out if my visa had been granted and if my passport was ready and I had to make a return trip to the Art Heritage Gallery where I had met Amal Allana yesterday so that I could buy the book she had edited on her father Ibrahim Alkazi. Thinking about it overnight, I felt that it would be a great buy and very relevant to my current research. 

    So leaving the museum behind, I took a rickshaw to Bengali Market, found the Triveni Art Gallery complex where Amal’s gallery is located and picked up a copy of the book for Rs. 1,000. 

Off to the Embassy:

     Armed with my book, I took another rickshaw and with some difficulty found the Uzbekistan Embassy where my passport with my visa sticker duly inserted in it was returned to me.

     I told the same rickshaw driver to then take me to my Fulbright residence where I reached at 6.00 pm after what had been an unexpectedly enlightening day on a bonus trip to Delhi—again, visiting Delhi was not something I had anticipated even two weeks ago...and yet, there I was in this city that had stolen by heart away...all over again.

Getting Ready for Departure:

           It took me about 45 minutes to get myself ready and packed and calling an Uber, I took my last few pictures of this beautiful Fulbright property that I was very fortunate to call home for two whole days. 

      When my cab arrived, I had a chance to see Delhi with the soft light of the illuminations of the city just coming up—India Gate had the tri-color Indian flag super-imposed on it through a light projection. The area around this monument gets really crowded every evening with loads of tourists visiting from various parts of India stopping here to take pictures. At the end of Raj Path, India’s answer to the Champs Elysses, I could see the silhouetted domes of the Presidential Palace also softly illuminated. I felt extraordinarily proud of modern India and the manner in which it has staked its place in history past imperialism.

     We arrived at Delhi airport at 7.30 pm which left me plenty of time to check in, browse through the various shops until my feet felt fatigued and I reached my gate to sit down and await boarding. Meanwhile, feeling distinctly peckish, I had bought a paneer tikka toasted sandwich and a chocolate milkshake from a place called Baker Street and finished it before going through Security.

     

Flight to Bombay:

     I had an aisle seat this time on a packed flight.  Jet Airways has suddenly ground to a halt as the company has gone under and all the other airlines are picking up the slack. This results in packed flights no matter where one is traveling in India. I used my airborne time to blog on my Ipad and when I reached Bombay at 11.30 pm, I took a rickshaw that got me home by 12. 30. I merely changed and threw myself on the bed at the end of what had been a really stressful trip. 

     But with my mission accomplished and my Uzbekistan visa in my passport, I can now turn my thoughts to dallying on the Silk Road. I cannot think of a better few days in store.

     Until tomorrow