Lost beauty regained. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The red sandstone walls are sculpted with calligraphy. Marble and black stone form flowers and stars. Every surface is as detailed as an illustrated page in an art book. Yet Delhi’s most ornate monument is little known. Maybe because it stands in cramped and super-crowded Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti, ringed by private residences. The tomb was built 460 years ago by Mughal noble Mirza Aziz Koka for his father Atgah Khan. Like many Delhi monuments, it had fallen into neglect. The interiors were originally covered with designs painted in red, blue and green. Much of that disappeared over time. Later repairs covered parts of what survived in… cement! The Aga Khan Trust for Culture has

White stones of Lal Qila. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Minars rise above the walls. Domes rise above the roof. Arches frame the prayer hall. Moti Masjid, the pearl mosque. Built entirely of white marble. Art historian John Ruskin wrote an epic three-volume treatise on the stones of Venice. This modest series picks a smaller subject, the white marble of Delhi’s Red Fort, most of whose buildings are made of red sandstone. Lal Qila is otherwise too large and complicated to chronicle in a single lifetime. One courtyard leads to another. One pavilion opens into another. Every visit leaves something unseen. Marble provides a way of looking at one aspect of the fort at a time. This time, the destination is

A roadside ruin. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The humid August afternoon is settling gently on the yellow walls of Gol Gumbad. Weak sunlight is making its way through the branches of a leafy tree, scattering across the walls. Leaf shadows are trembling in the mild breeze, making the wall seem to breathe. Lodhi Road is rich in centuries-old monuments. Within a short distance stand Humayun's Tomb, Safdarjung's Tomb, and the stone ensemble inside Lodhi Garden. Gol Gumbad, which stands right beside the road, remains the least noticed. Traffic streams past the monument every hour, but hardly anybody slows down to notice its square body and broad dome. This afternoon, the monument compound is open, but the iron gate to the gumbad

Twin towers tourism. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] In the hot months, the hottest place in Delhi may well be the top of the Jama Masjid minarets. These twin towers of red sandstone soar above a city whose beleaguered bechare citizens spend much of May and June searching for shade. The towers stand fully exposed to the blazing summer sun, slowly baking in the heat. Yet people keep climbing the towers. They come to the monument, cross the vast courtyard, and buy a ticket to ascend one of the two minarets. In practice, foreign tourists are directed to the northern tower, while Indian visitors climb the southern one. The ascent itself is an adventure. The staircase is narrow and steep. It coils

ACs of the older times. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] There are many baolis in Delhi, but two of these old stepwells embody distinct responses to the summer season, and to the way our city remembers, or forgets, its old edifices. One is Agrasen ki Baoli. The other is Gandhak ki Baoli. One has become a popular hangout. The other remains a secretive refuge. Both are easily accessible, tucked beside busy roads. One sits in the central sprawl of the city, near the office towers of Barakhamba Road and KG Marg. The other lies in the southern parts, near the medieval tower of Qutub Minar. One is frequently photographed; it has been framed by Raghu Rai’s lens and has also appeared in an

A snack vendor’s migrations. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Sometimes the accompaniment outshines the main course. Such is the case with the tomb of Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq. The emperor’s tomb is interesting, but the secondary structure appended to his majesty’s monument is more interesting. That said, the red sandstone tomb built 700 years ago on the southern edge of present-day South Delhi is imposing. It radiates power and awe, qualities typical of tombs belonging to Dilli’s long-gone sultans. This one, after all, was built for a dynasty’s founder. The tomb is so world-famous that it shows up even in the comic book Tintin in Tibet! To tell the truth, Ghiyasuddin’s tomb appears more enigmatic when viewed from the hilltop ramparts of neighbouring Tughlaqabad

A monument in history. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The news from Iran remains troubling and tragic. In recent weeks, this page has reflected on Delhi’s long and layered connections with that land—bonds that mostly predate the modern Iranian state. Many of these connections are deeply enriching. Delhi’s Mirza Ghalib composed his finest poetry in Persian, a language that once linked cultures across regions. As with shared histories, these bonds also bear instances of rupture. Acknowledging those does not negate the good in the shared past. A souvenir of this complexity stands discreetly in Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk. From the roof of the Shahi Sunehri Masjid, the Persian ruler Nader Shah oversaw one of Delhi’s most devastating episodes, 287 years ago.

The step-well around the corner. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is early March, the afternoons are already hot. If humankind had never invented electricity—no air-conditioners, no coolers—the good old way to escape from the hostile weather would have been to move downward into this curious structure, step by step, toward the receding water below. There the breeze rises directly from the surface, cooler and cleaner, in shade and shantih. This is the baoli—the old stone step-well. A monument to summer. One of Delhi’s most intriguing and lesser-known baolis stands beside the Sufi shrine of Hazrat Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki in Mehrauli. This afternoon, the Qutub Saheb ki Baoli is covered by a metal grid. While its massive stone walls are lined