Delhi: Tomb raiding

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I had already visited all the Delhi classics, the traditional tourist sites. Today, Henri took me to the South of the city, to explore some of the lesser known areas of Delhi, a proper way to conclude my trip.

We were planning for an 8:30 AM lift-off. Of course that never happened: we eventually left at about 10 AM for the Qutub Minar complex onboard Anita´s car that had been freshly washed by the local car wash guy. As we were waiting for the car, I did a bit of bird-watching (that had become a slight obsession over the week-end) while some guy was talking on his mobile phone, hanging upside down on the monkey bars.

The Qutub Minar complex is famous for its eponymous minaret, which towers above the local skyline, popping high above the trees. The first structures were built around the 12th century. The minaret is quite neck-breakingly impressive but the surrounding ruins are interesting too: Iltutmish got himself a very intricate tomb and remnants of mosques and other structures provided some welcome moments in the shade. The complex has a history of escalation, where later generations just wanted to build bigger and higher: mosques were enlarged and a second minaret was planned. Just a giant brown lump of stone was ever built.

Already quite crowded. It was the week-end after all. Henri did a bit of tour guide-ing with his expertise in Indian history and architecture. There were also busloads of visitors from villages all around. They were recognizable from their traditional dresses and general sense of “fish-out-of-waterness”. At one point, while relaxing in the shade on a lawn eating cashew cookies, a group of teenagers unashamedly tried to pose for a picture right next to us as if we were the highlight of their tour. Henri was able to brush them off with the confidence and ease that comes with two full years of living as a European foreigner in Delhi. After the tour, Henri and I had a fresh lime soda, sold out of a cart by the side of the street. It’s made from fresh squeezed lime juice, water of unknown origin, soda and a masala mixture. Anita passed on the opportunity because of the aforementioned unknown origin of the water. She actually had a point and I was afraid that I was putting my clean bill of health on the line. It turned out to be very good and refreshing (and safe).

We jumped in the car to get to the nearby Mehrauli archeological park, a lesser-known park full of 16th century ruins in the middle of the forest (obsessive bird-watching again). We parked the car and started with a mosque that featured both an exciting wasp’s nest and the tomb of Jamali and Kamali, a Sufi saint and his mysterious friend. To view the inside of the tomb itself, we needed to get the local keeper to open the locked door for us. It was brightly-painted and definitely worth the visit. Henri took pictures and I filmed a little bit, shoes off of course. We then explored the ruins a bit, following the security guy who wanted to be our guide so he could make a few rupees. We saw Balban's tomb with a little sample bottle of perfume dumped over it, near the first arch in the history of Hindu-Islamic architecture (I get that from the web, not the "guide"...)

Our little trek took us through the forest, by a group of old men playing cards, a bunch of grunting boars and a pack of teenagers that had trouble written all over them. We waited out on top of the ancient boathouse, looking at the trees and the pond beneath, imagining how large the original artificial lake used to be. With the teenagers gone, we climbed the stairs to another tomb in the middle of a wide open space with cows chewing and kids playing cricket. The tomb itself wasn’t extraordinary but it did have a rather huge bee’s nest.

Back to the car. We were getting hungry so I trusted Henri with the choice of a nice restaurant for lunch. I dozed off in the back seat and woke up in a crowded parking lot. We were at Hauz Khas Village, a developing hub for the Delhi art scene. It had galleries, Western-style bars & restaurants, designer shops and (probably) expensive apartments. Henri took us to an East Indian restaurant on a rooftop. We reached it on our second try (wrong staircase) but once up there, we could enjoy the view on the nearby lake (more on that later). There was a French family and a group of British women already enjoying their meals/drinks. We sat down and ordered an appetizer (chicken basket) and fresh lime sodas (the other one was better). The service took a while. A long while. We ordered the main courses (pork , beef and vegetables with sticky rice) in anticipation. At one point we enquired about our meal: “2 minutes”, “Really? 2 minutes?”, “OK, 5 minutes”… About 20 minutes later, we had our food. For the main courses, we asked the same thing to a different waiter and had the exact same response. Maybe they were trained to say that… The food was OK but definitely not worth the 2 hours. Anita and Henri had Kingfisher beers to flush it all down (Shh! It’s not on the menu!).

On the way to the lake, we stopped at an “antique” store that sold all kinds of used stuff, including old Hindi movie posters. I bought 6 poster replicas (the real ones wouldn’t fit in my luggage) that will probably look nice on my wall. Our way to the lake took us through the ruins of 14th century tombs (again! Enough dead people for today, as Anita said) and an old Coranic school. It’s now used as a hangout area for local teenagers (and foreigners). There were couples smooching, friends chatting and a group was playing tag or something. We looked for a way to get down to the lake but it would have been too adventurous (a 2-meter jump over barbed wire, anyone?). Eventually we had to go back and take a detour by a deer enclosure (Huh?).

The lake was unusually clean, with boat carcasses shipwrecked by the shore. There were joggers running/power walking around the lake and families feeding the noisy geese and ducks. Some food vendors also dotted the path. And a giant water spray shot out of the water for some reason. A student asked us to answer her survey: it was part of her research project in the field of destination marketing for the city of Delhi. I naturally accepted, surveys are my job after all. I even gave her some advice (that was a pretty poorly conceived questionnaire, to be honest).

I dozed off again in the car ride back to the apartment. We ordered delivery chicken korma, dal, tandoori roti, mutton kebabs and jeera rice. Henri and Anita went out for a game of badminton while I uploaded my videos and started packing. The food was good and pretty messy (at least for me). Overall, we over-estimated our appetites and guzzled it all down with a giant bottle of Pepsi bought at the corner shop. We spent the rest of the evening just talking, waiting for my ultimate and comfortable taxi ride to the airport (a seat belt! wow!).

This trip was a wild ride and I enjoyed (almost) every minute of it. It was great to see Henri again and I am extremely grateful for his help. I’m happy it all went smoothly and I didn’t have to improvise much as my schedule turned out to be pitch perfect (in my opinion). I haven’t been sick and haven’t lost anything (apart from my compass that literally fell out of a hole in my pocket on Chandni Chowk). Now all I have to do is stitch all my videos together.

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