Heritage Walk to Feroz Shah Kotla

A Heritage Walk to Feroz Shah Kotla, a fortress built by Sultan Ferozshah Tughlaq in 1354 as he established the fortified city of Firozabad on the banks of river Yamuna as the capital of Delhi Sultanate, was organized by the Shahjahanabad Redevelopment Corporation, Govt of NCT of Delhi, on 5th November, 2011. It was a very well organized event, anchored in an exemplary manner by Dr Navina Jafa, an erudite scholar who has done her doctorate in the Mughal period of Indian history.

    What is left of the Feroz Shah Kotla complex today are the ruins of the fort front, a Baoli (a well or a pond as a source of water), and the ruins of a mosque. Most of the fort and the city of Firozabad were dismantled by subsequent rulers who reused the stones and structures as building material for their own buildings. Amidst all the ruins, an Ashoka Column (pillar) stands majestically on the roof of the uppermost section of a three-tiered arcaded palace pavilion opposite the congregational mosque right in the middle of the fortified area. The 13.1 meter high pristine polished sandstone pillar from the 3rd century B.C. and attributed to the Mauryan emperor Ashoka was moved from Ambala by Sultan Ferozshah Tughlaq and installed in the fort complex in 1356. The sandstone pillar has not lost any of its sheen even today as it shone bright in the morning sun when we visited the heritage complex on 5th November.

 
As we entered the fort complex, on the left was a little slot on the wall where believers are supposed to be invoking the ‘Jinns’ (spirits) for their blessings. We were told this practice started as early as 1970s and, therefore, had nothing to do with history per se or the heritage of the site itself. Our well-informed anchor of the walk told us that the adjacent Feroz Shah Kota Cricket Stadium was established in 1883 but the first official cricket match was held at the ground only in 1934.

Outside the complex and bang in the middle of Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg is a park complex housing the Khooni Darwaza where the captured enemies were tortured with hot pouring oil and being hung from stone carved stone hooks at the top of the darwaza. We were told by our guide that Emperor Aurangazeb, in his bid to capture and consolidate political power, killed his older brother Dara Shikoh, cut his head and put it on one of those hooks for public display, and later on, buried Dara Shikoh’s headless body in the Humayun Tomb complex in Delhi.
 

 

Here are a couple of stills from the walk, for more please visit our facebook page :

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.171278016297952.40918.149428681816219&type=1

An evening at Jama Masjid

Yesterday was a lazy saturday afternoon with not much to do. But the evening got better. Bunch of us students got in touch with a docu film maker, Shravan Vidyarthi, who agreed to take us to the Jama Masjid to look for a story, through stills ofcourse. Getting to Jama masjid was made easy by the Delhi Metro connectivity. Not  much has changed about Delhi - 6, though. The walk from Chawri Bazaar station to the mosque was a challenge of sorts.

Once there, we realized that carrying our shoes in our bags was the only option to get into the complex, if you wanted to leave the place with your shoes on. Once in, the only word i had in my mind for the Jama Masjid was - Wow. With arches and little minarets all over the place it was just beautiful, and I could finally relate to the scale of the pictures that i had seen before on the internet or the television.

The main structure was the biggest of them all, with the two tall minarets on either side of the central structure, it almost transports one to the Mughal era. 

It was funny at first, I thought women were not allowed inside the mosque and we had two in our group. I thought we would be asked to leave the premises altogether. How wrong was I? Seems they allow women to  only visit the mosque. Prayer timings for them are separate. 

By the end of it all, we got into some trouble with the mosque authorities. Seems we were supposed to buy tickets for our cameras. So we were asked to leave or pay up, though we carried the cameras in our open hands and no one stopped us while entering.

We did leave eventually without having to cough up dough, courtesy the Masjid authorities, after which we decided to grab a bite at the famous Karim's. A stone's throw from the mosque, we verified with the owners about the authenticity of the place, considering a lot of other Karims have mushroomed all around the city. Everything was perfect, except we didn't know what to order. Which led to a not-so-great experience. But we will be back, after some research about what's good and what's not at Karim's.

We really learned a lot from Shravan, who gave us some of his valuable time. We had a great time picking his brains for advancement of our own skills. Some of you may want to visit his website to know more about Shravan and his work: http://www.shravanvidyarthi.com/

Delhi and the Aam Aadmi

Last week, was fun. Chicken tikka at C.R. Park and the burning of raavan on the night of dussherra were what i wanted to see and do. What i got in return was DENGUE fever. Ek Macchar sala insaan ko bore kar deta hai! No points for guessing, last week wasn't much fun. I was confined to bed for most of it with bottles of saline solution being injected into me at blazing fast speeds. I had so much planned for this blog. But it was not to be. So here i am with an interview. Its not someone famous. But he sure is familiar: the common man. I was at the local salon near my house trying to tape an interview for class. My first ever, and it did not turn out to be that bad after all.

This is what Pawan Kumar had to say about his job, education, Anna Hazare and life in the big city!

Detro?

I believe that if you’re travelling around Delhi, you can’t get any greener than the Delhi Metro. But I always wish they had come up with a cooler name for it, like the tube or something. I mean, hey it is in fact one of the greenest metro-rail services around the world. What made it official was the ‘carbon credits’ awarded to it by the United Nations, making it the first railway system in the world to do so. 

I take the Delhi Metro every day, to college and back home. And more often than not, I get more than the usual time-saving lift. 

 “ehh you know what, the guy at the token counter made a pass at me yesterday”, and then giggles are what I heard. I almost thought I was standing next to the ladies compartment, but no, this was the in-coach public address system. Somebody had left the mic on, in the engine compartment.

My usual routine on the metro involves, finding a nice spot to stand or sit (if I ever get that lucky), reach inside my bag for my music player and then get lost into the pictures painted by those huge plexi-glass windows. But every now and then the battery runs out. What do you do then? Oh believe me there’s lots you can do. Just look around, there’s entertainment everywhere. 

College students, yanking out one swanky phone after the other, trying to one-up the other guy. This, in some weird way is the equivalent of the ‘Daily’ metro fashion week in the ladies compartment. 

People swaying their cell phones in every direction possible, announcing the arrival of ‘motion gaming’ in India. 

*Please stand away from the doors. Obstructing the opening and closing of doors is a punishable offense* Oh yeah right, like that works. Find me the space and I will. You know what would work: Please stand away from the doors; we might just open them during transit. 

Then there are those who stare at everybody else on the train, giving weird mysterious looks as if they’re the next kasab. 

“Ghanta…aise kaise extra pasie le lega woh...hello…hello…can you hear me?...hello…” - The people who blur the line between megaphones and cell phones. Luckily we have tunnels to cut ‘em off.

There are countless other idiosyncrasies that make the Delhi Metro so unique. They make it belong to the very city, it pumps life into. Then I start thinking about the name, and I tell myself it wouldn’t be the same if it was anything else. I mean we’re lucky they didn’t call it Mass rapid transport system or something. That would have been laboriously slow having to say it every time you wanted to use it. MRTS doesn’t sound all that great either. Have any bright ideas? Leave them down here…

Ehh Chikne!!

It was quite a weird experience yesterday for me when I was traveling by Metro. A eunuch came menacingly towards me and almost yelled: Eh, chikne, is there a urinal on this train? Such encounters, though, keep happening in Delhi as in any other city, this was the first time I came up and close with such a situation! Folks tell me the central park in Connaught Place was one hot and happening place where dostana friendships blossomed until a few years back. Maybe, Palika Bazaar and the mushrooming of vendors all over the central park has left little place for anything else.  Hey, hold your guns! This is only a statement of facts as I have observed or heard. As for my position where I stand when it comes to human orientation in such matters, I would say it is a matter of personal choice. Like I always say I am an agnostic when I am asked if I believe in the existence of God! Believe you me, I am certainly not trying to be politically correct. Nope, not in the least. 
        Like Karan Johar said the other day on ‘India’s Most Desirable’ on Star World  when Simi Garewal cajoled him to come out fair and square about his own sexual orientation: Whatever my orientation, why should I say I am straight, or gay, or bi-sexual, or tri-sexual or anything like that? Being a public persona that he is, he may not have been politically correct when he protested vehemently on the show and almost took offense to being prodded by people repeatedly about his orientation, but it was a very strong defence of his right to privacy. Or was it his personal choice that he was defending? I still felt he could have put on a 1000 watt smile (I think he has a killer smile!) and ducked that question for a millionth time! 
        
Shahid Kapur was smarter when, the interviewer on a television show, taking a cue from the widely publicized reports about the on-screen chemistry between him and Sonam Kapoor in their forthcoming film Mausam, asked if there was a new girl in his life: I would certainly let all of you know when there is one. A master at wriggling out of any such tight situation (remember his ostensible link-up with Kareena?), he said this with a huge smile, looking straight into the camera. But then, was this not a straight (no pun intended) question unlike the one that made our friend Karan Johar twist and turn in his seat and see red quickly?

Coming back to my own predicament on the Metro yesterday. I rang up my dad while still travelling in the Metro and just said I had a weird experience but insisted I would tell him the details when I got back home. The poor soul was so worried and was making mental projections of what possibly could have happened with me, as he hurried back home from work! And once home, when I narrated my ‘encounter’ with all mirch & masala, it was quite a hilarious entertainment for him. Was he excited to hear the great story? He protested he was so worried with anxiety that I might have possibly triggered the onset of hyper tension that he has never had, in him. He in fact reminded me of how bravely I went around clicking pictures alongside him last year at the gay pride march at Jantar Mantar. Would you guys care to see some of those snaps? I leave you with a few images:

  

 

Of Delhi, Ganesh Utsav, and Mere Brother ki Dulhan

I sat wondering what producers at 'Yash Raj Films' think before allocating budgets to movies like "Pyaar Impossible". And then "Mere brother ki Dulhan" happened. Huh! yet another typically formula-based bollywood movie taking a piss at its audience? Or so i thought, until last Sunday. On our way to the theater, with my family, i saw people leaning on the guard rails along the Okhla barrage over the river Yamuna in Delhi. It was momentary though, as we whooshed past in a hurry to get to the theater on time.

On our way back I got off the car with my newly acquired Nikon snapper, in an attempt to find out what the hullabaloo was all about. Being a person not in sync with the myriad religious customs  that the society follows, i had no clue what those people were up to. It seemed pretty amusing to look at, from a distance.

Then it all came to me in a flash. This was the last day of the yearly ten day Ganesh Utsav, and the people had gathered along the banks of Yamuna to immerse their very own Ganesh idols into the holy river. Much the same as mumbaikars must've done at Chowpatty in Mumbai and tamils at Besant Nagar beach in Chennai. Ofcourse, one didn't see the sea of humanity as in Mumbai, but then the fervor was equally inspiring.

Seeing the celebrations and the colors, i asked my folks to leave me there and drive home. Walking to the banks where the immersion was being done was an experience in itself, with people throwing colors all over the place. All the action almost made me forget about the camera. It's funny how people pose for you if you happen to have a camera 'bigger' than a normal point and shoot, even as you hesitantly yank out your camera thinking people might take offense to being clicked. There was heavy security ,courtesy  'Dilli' Police, all over the place. What bothered me more was the slippery surface near the banks and my worn out flip-flops. After nearly an hour, i decided to walk back home. It was an odd decision that i made considering home was a good 3km walk. And then i got back to thinking about the movie i had watched in the afternoon. It was in-fact, a typically formula-based bollywood comedy with a story line as old as time itself. But if you have absolutely nothing to do this weekend and couldn't get tickets to watch- what's that film starring 'Sallu Bhai'...ahh never mind, you might want to check out this refreshingly directed Ali Zafar film,  if only for Ali Zafar himself - Mere Brother Ki Dulhan.