Dilli Travel-log Luv-shuv-te-Qila-Purana....Part II- Ghalib Aur Razia

After the Qila purana last week it was the time for some luv-shuv and we headed straight to who other than Ghalib...Poochhte hain wo k Ghalib kon hai .....Koi batlaao k ham batlaayain kya.....

While he is the most-quoted-most-sung poet , he was never as famous in his own life time as today; A lot of it was also due to the fact that he lived in an era of instability and degeneration ; He is often referred to as the last poet of the Moghul court! 

Married to Umrao Begum (stop imagining, only the name is common) @ the age of 13; he fathered seven kids and none of them survived beyond infancy..and in one his couplet he calls marriage his second imprisonment, life being the first..

क़ैदे-हयात, बंदे-ग़म अस्ल में दोनों एक हैं, मौत से पहले आदमी ग़म से निजात पाये क्यों? (he prison of life and the bondage of grief are one and the same.Before the onset of death, how can man expect to be free of grief?)

 He never 'earned' but lived on patronage and the haveli @ Ballimaran (Gali Qasim Jaan) where he spent the last years of his life was also his wifes's the ASI's story @ the renovated site even quotes his wife to be traditional and demure  someone who never asked for anything...yet, en would be men you see...
How to reach there:-Take the Metro and get off at Chawri bazar station and take a rikshaw to Ballimaran, and ask for directions...we walked the whole way as the journey was more important than the destination and captured some hustle bustle in the streets.
What to expect:-Nothing, the Haveli is no more what you may imagine, just the entrance has been reclaimed and the govt. has done a decent job of making it look beautiful. Some couplets, letters, pictures and artifacts adorn the place which makes up for the energy you spend looking out for this place.
Value Adds:-The gali boasts of some good smelling food...so you may try the biryani and korma,. but everything is beef so take your pick.
 

Our next destination was Sultana Razia's tomb. I think this will top the list of the-most-dilapidated-abused-yet-protected-monument. The path to this place is almost nondescript, the last 200 meters seems like the place doesn't exist on earth...but her story is what makes it all worth!

 

She was the only woman ruler , who ever ruled directly from the throne of Delhi, of course till Indira Gandhi and Sheila Dixit came along. She dressed like a man and reveled herself from the howdah during a battle...and the hindi movie makes this as the high point!! That explains the way women are treated. She was chosen by her father Iltutmish (2nd king of the slave dynasty- refer to Part I of the blog) over her incompetent brothers and one of them (Behram Shah) eventually created a rebellion against her and assassinated her after her troops abandoned her and her husband.

But The most enticing part of her story is her relationship with Yakut, a habishi/ african slave. Some stories and of course Bollywood suggest they were lovers but some suggest they were confidants. There is also a story that suggests  Malik Altunia, her childhood friend, killed Yakut and took her as a prisoner and she married him to save herself. Eventually both were killed in Kartal in Haryana where they had run away after losing to Behram Shah; There is also a story about a second grave in Kartal. A more recent story hints about a third grave @ Tonk in Rajasthan, where she lies with her beloved Yakut.

How to get there :- Ask for Bulbuli-Kalan / Pahari Bhojla. Once you get there you ask for directions; This place is close to the Turkman gate.

What to expect:-Narrowest of the gali's you will ever see in your life, and your only expression would be, is it for real!!! 2 dilapidated graves of Razia and her sister Sazia and a mosque within 4 walls, now I know what that phrase means....

 

After so much of history we headed staright to JamaMasjid for some sumptuous food....the Karim Hotel in Gali Kababian and this is a must do every time you visit old Delhi.....

PS: The metro station @ Chawri Bazaar is 25 meters deep and is among the marvels of modern day infrastructure...and the platforms were all pre-fabricated...don't miss to marvel this as well!!

Check out more pictures on my page..http://www.facebook.com/SumanaClicks?ref=hl

Chec

Dilli Travel-log Luv-shuv-te-Qila-Purana....Part I

I have been forever a history junkie, it started with my mom-grandmon-and the extended family telling me juicy  versions of a mundane history and eventually they became the bedtime stories, some true and some interesting. So when I came back to Dilli this time, i decided to go and visit half of those not-so-popular-never-on-the-casual-tourist-list places to see what history looks like after so many hundred years.

According to the ASI website there are 174 marked monuments that stands the testimony to a bygone era. And except the top 10-15, most of them are maintained but not frequented. 

A bite on the history of building and re-building..

• There are remains of 8 major cities in Delhi. It is believed to be the Indraprastha of the epic Mahabharata.
• The first recorded ones  – 300BC- Maurya Dynasty (proof being the inscription of the Mauryan Emperor  Ashoka )
• Tomara Dynasty founded LalKot- 736 AD.
• Chauhans (Prithviraj Chauhan famed) conquered and named it Qila Rai Pithora.(this one is somewhere close to the present day Saket)
• Muhammad Ghori (Afghan invader ) came in around 1200AD.
• Turkic slave-general, Qutb-ud-din Aibak (1206) became the first Sultan of Delhi and his Successor, Iltutmish (1211–36), consolidated the Muslim conquest of northern India, which was to last for nest 6 centuries.
• The Khilji dynasty ruled between 1290-1320 and the most revered ruler was Ala-ud-din Khilji,
• Next was the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq (1325-1351). He is ‘teased’ as someone whose brief went to tatters when he was holding his lowers ;)
• Delhi was captured and sacked by Timur Lenk in 1398. (The Moughals were a linage of Timur and when Babur’ was thrown away from Samarkand and everything he owned came to India to lay a claim coz Timur had come here :O)
• Next were Sayyid dynasty (1414-1451), and Afghan Lodhi dynasty (1451-1526).
•  But in in 1526 after the 1^st  Battle of Panipat, Babur founded the Mughal dynasty. They ruled us for 300 years with a hiatus of 16 years during the reign of Sher Shah Suri, from 1540 to 1556. 
• Mughals came back with the 2^nd  Battle of Panipat and ruled roughly till 1720; Between then and 1857’s failed Mutiny it finally fell into the hands of East India Company, there were alternate Turk and Maratha rules, where in the Marathas signed a treaty to protect the Mughal lineage…rest as they is history :D

My first pick was the 'Rajon Ki Baoli' supposed to be a water collection tank built  around the 1200. But like everything in Delhi - "jo dikhta nahin, woh bikta nahin' there isn't too much direction to this place and in the course we discovered, 2 more monuments and a park full of ruins!!!

1. Hauz-i-Shamsi & The Jal Mahal:- While the first one was built in 1230 when the Prophet himself came in the dreams and ordered, the Jal Mahal was built in 1600's as a Sarai (Rest house for travellers). Both of these monuments are protected but not really protected and are amidst thickly populated area

2. Madhi Masjid:- There is no confirmed information on who built it but its a beautiful piece of architecture and no one really visits it. But if you really want to find this one, so take the cut to the Jain Badi on the MG Rood, somewhere in between, you will see this one!

3. Mehrauli Archiological Park :- This is where our search ended and we found a park full of ruins, the two most popular ones being the Jamali Kamali Mousque and the Rajon -ki-Baoli. And ASI has done a splendid job, there are pathways for a trek and everything is very aesthetically marked, a rare thing for ASI. This place also boasts of some unusual sights of the Qutab Minar!! I recommend this as a must visit; The entrance is a non-descript green gate bang on the MG Road after the Jain Badi turn if you are travelling from Gurgaon towards Delhi.

It took us a lot of hassel to negotiate the thin gallis and bad traffic and almost 4 hours of ruin hunting, but every minute was woth it….special thanks to Priyanka …her enthusiasm kills!!!!!