Delhi’s coolest traffic light

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

What a road, the Lodhi Road. It has to be among Delhi’s most picturesque roads. The Central Delhi avenue passes by the super-beautiful Lodhi Garden. It also passes by India Habitat Centre, the great architect Joseph Stein’s final creation in Delhi. The same road also has the good fortune to pass by India Islamic Centre, the façade of which bears a work of tile art that is intensely reminiscent of Persian architecture. The road also passes by Lodhi Road post office, whose painted boundary walls evoke the ambiance of Madhubani art. And here’s the icing on the cake—Lodhi Road culminates at a traffic light that has to be among Delhi’s prettiest traffic lights. The setting is so singularly striking that filmmaker Pradip Krishen chose this traffic light as the opening montage of his acclaimed 1992 movie Electric Moon.

Consider now the scene this polluted November afternoon in 2025. The road’s aforementioned traffic light stands at the so-called T-point, where the vertical span of Lodhi Road hits the horizontal span of Aurobindo Road. As the green light turns red, the cars and autos halt, coming face-to-face with an object of profound beauty—the Safdarjung’s Tomb. (This monument is in news. Next month, it shall start receiving some much-needed restoration, courtesy the Archaeological Survey of India.)

Elegant and seemingly fragile, the Mughal-era edifice lies just across the traffic signal from Lodhi Road. While waiting for the light to turn green, the commuter is privileged with a panoramic view of the monument’s arched gateway. Without disembarking from the vehicle, the waiting commuter is able to view every aspect of the gateway, including its three dream-like jharokhas. The domed tomb within the gateway gets clearly visible on less smoggy days. But during Delhi’s deepest winter, the stone gateway loses its tangibility, barely perceptible in the cold mist.

The relic of an empire’s twilight years, Safdarjung’s Tomb was the last major Mughal monument. The fact that it was built in a restless time of decline and anarchy could be deduced from the tomb’s dome—the white marbles blocks up there were looted from the dome of poet Rahim’s tomb, which stands baldy some distance away.

On another evening, two masked men are seen sitting on one side of the Lodhi Road traffic light, sketch pads on their laps. They are drawing the gateway of Safdarjung’s Tomb, but they are omitting the traffic light and traffic, depicting only a part of the reality.