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

Delhi in immortal marble. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Great poet Mirza Ghalib was born in the city of Taj Mahal, that Mughal-era marble monument to romantic love. His karam-bhoomi however was Delhi, where he spent his long life composing poems on pyar-prem-ishq. But here’s the irony. Ghalib did not compose a single ghazal on the lovely Taj. Even so, his grave in Delhi stands beside the world’s first Mughal monument built entirely of marble. That said, while Delhi is a city crowded with monuments, only a few of them are constructed entirely of marble, though many monuments incorporate it among other materials. The city’s handful of all-marble structures includes the Moti Masjid inside the Red Fort, the Diwan-i-Khas within the

One landmark, many perspectives. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Which Old Delhi monument is so grand and so visible from all parts of the historic quarter that it appears to symbolize the entire Old Delhi? It is not the great Red Fort, which lies on the outer limits of the Walled City; a good part of it anyway destroyed in the 1857 uprising. That monument is the Jama Masjid. The sandstone edifice is visible from the rooftops of every neighbourhood in Purani Dilli. During the Emergency years, in the 1970s, some members of the ruling party wanted to demolish parts of the Walled City, to create an unhindered view of the monument. “I want Jama Masjid to be clearly visible from Turkman

50 years later. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Old Delhi’s Turkman Gate stands as a stark souvenir of India’s Emergency era. This year marks the 50th year of its fateful link with that episode in our contemporary history. Consider author Patrick French words, describing those events that unfolded in 1976, in his book on India: “Standing by Turkman Gate in Delhi’s old city, he (Sanjay Gandhi) told a government official he wanted to be able to see the Jama Masjid, the main mosque. Over a period of six days the command was implemented and… 150,000 shacks were knocked down. (On 19 April) The police fired on a group of homeless protesters near Turkman Gate, killing several.” Half a century later, this