Heatwave resorts.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Such an unbearably hot summer noon. Lodhi Garden is understandably deserted, except for a few romantic couples (of course!). Plus, a young man in shorts, strolling purposelessly. And two friends sitting on the grass—Vaishnavi is singing a song, Shristi is her solo audience—see photo. Then, there are the uniformed guards on duty.

In summer days, the gardens of Lodhi Garden continues to be picturesque, but not hospitable. The burning air might as well boil a pot of moong dal. This naturally becomes an opportunity to skip the lovely outdoors and re-examine the interiors of the sprawling park—that is, the stone monuments dispersed across the garden. These ruins anyway came up first, the landscaped garden around them arrived much later.

Start with Emperor Muhammad Shah Sayyid’s tomb, visible in the photo. The octagonal makbara has a circular corridor running around it, in which lamplights form intersecting shadows post-sunset. During the day, the air in the corridor feels surprisingly fresh and only a little warm, maybe because the thick stones keep out the worst of heat, while the creative architecture maintains the air in a frenzied circulation.

The other significant oasis of shade and stone in the park are the twin monuments of Bada Gumbad and Sheesh Gumbad. Bara Gumbad is bundled into three edifices. Two of these offer substantial relief from summertime heat. The domed centrepiece is referred to as a tomb, but it doesn’t have any grave. During sweltering afternoons, the spacious interior lies immersed in a comforting, sleep-inducing darkness, in sharp contrast to the blinding light outside. As the afternoon ends, the cloistered space fills up with the softer light of the approaching evening.

The adjoining mosque has its inner walls sculpted into floral motifs, calligraphies and niches. You can spend long hours studying these walls. Since the monument is partly open, it is possible to stand in shade and yet enjoy an uninterrupted view of the white-hot exteriors.

Directly opposite the Bara Gumbad stands the Sheesh Gumbad. Scores of graves litter its darkened interiors. The occasional bats make the place spooky.

The park’s most enigmatic ruin is a small, little-known structure tucked within a bamboo grove. Its stone walls perennially emit a shade of rusty red. A display board identifies it as the remains of a Lodhi-era mosque—“most portions of which have now disappeared.” Inside, it is always dark and musty—freezing cold in the winter, and nicely tolerable in the summer.

Lastly, a tiny unused mosque standing close to the park’s stone bridge. This hot sunny afternoon, the empty three-bayed chamber is soothingly cool.