Sunday served up a glorious day in Delhi,
and one that we were determined to fill with some more discoveries!
We started the day at India Gate - an
"Arc de Triomphe" esq structure in the middle of New Delhi. We were
not able to get very close, as it is all closed off in preparation for a huge military
parade that starts there on the National Republic Day next weekend. Even from a
distance it was a pretty impressive structure, only added to by the very long
and wide straight road leading to and from the arch, where the procession will
travel.
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| The imposing India Gate |
Close to India Gate is the National Gallery
of Modern Art. We had driven past this in a Tuk-Tuk a week previously and
spotted some interesting looking sculptures outside it, so thought it might be
worth a look. The gallery was in a beautiful grand building, surrounded by a
very colourful and well cared for sculpture garden. One of the first sculptures
we came across was this one below, which didn't look like it should be able to
stand upright! It was made up of all sorts of pots , pans and utensils pouring
out of a giant silver bucket. We never did find out the meaning behind it, but
it was very impressive to look at.
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| Huge sculpture in the gardens of the National Gallery of Modern Art. |
Inside the gallery was a complete mix of
pictures - the range in styles was astonishing. On the one hand there was some
very traditional Indian art, and that was contrasted with some very European
looking paintings; it turns out that the
Brits had set up art schools for sons of rich Indians to teach them how to
paint "properly". In complete contrast again there were some much
more modern styles of art around. A lot of the pictures were depicting poverty
and malnutrition, reflecting the huge problem that these two plagues are in
this country.
The artist who had done the first sculpture
(Sabadh Gupta) had an exhibition of his work on, which contained some very
interesting things. There was a hut made entirely of cow pat cakes, a giant tiffin
tin carved out of solid marble and a toilet plated entirely in brass. The one
that we really loved though was to be found back outside. This silver banyan
tree represented an Indian family - the big trunk in the middle was the father,
and from him new branches were being sent out and taking root so that they
could grow and take over the role once the main trunk grew old and died - obviously the father's sons. It was a
nice idea, and a very striking sculpture
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| Under the silver banyan tree at the National Museum of Modern Art. |
We walked on and grabbed a quick lunch from
some street food places. For dessert we found something called gulab jamun,
which are balls of a light cakey dough, soaked in syrup for ages and then
heated up in warm syrup and served up hot. We were lucky enough to have these
made for us by a friend of ours before we left for India, and were delighted to
find them here as they are seriously yummy!
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| Gulab jamun - super yummy! |
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| Emma in the pedalo. |
Our next stop was Purana Qila, the
residence of two old rulers - Humayun and Sher Shah. Between them they had
built many beautiful buildings within the walls of this huge place, which had
similarities with the Red Fort we visited last weekend. However, before we
could go inside, Emma insisted that we had to take a trip on the boating lake
just outside it on our own two-girl pedalo! There were several other boats
(mainly of teenage boys) who developed a game where the only rule seemed to be
to try and crash into the white people! So it quickly descended into boat
dodgems, which was very entertaining!
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| Michaela expertly steering the pedalo. |
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| The boating lake. |
Purana Qila had three different entrances -
all very grand - and was surrounded by a huge wall. We initially tried to get
into one that wasn't open (another example of the lack of signage!), but
eventually found the right gate to enter the world within.
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| The hidden northern gate. |
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| Purana Qila's main entrance. |
The gardens surrounding all the buildings
were really beautiful and it was lovely wondering around in the sun. One of our
favorite buildings was the Sher Mandal, a double storied octagonal building
that Humayan used as a library. Weirdly, the bottom storey was almost entirely
solid, which seemed like a waste of a storey to us, but we couldn't fault the aesthetics!
Close to that was a huge flight of stairs descending into the ground, which we
were informed was a Baoli - a deep well designed to cover most of the water to
keep it clean and stop it from evaporating. There were 89 steps going down to a
depth of 22 metres! A long way to go when you get a bit thirsty!
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| The beautiful sunny gardens of Purana Qila. |
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| The Sher Mandal. |
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| The Baoli - descending for 22 metres! |
The most striking building however, was a
beautiful mosque built in the grounds. The huge front arch was decorated with
elaborate inlaid marble, which really caused you to catch your breath as you
walked around the corner to see it. Inside, a lot of the original vivid colours
were preserved and we imagined that it really must have been incredible in its
day. We were struck again by how stunning writing can be, and that you don't
necessarily need detailed pictures to decorate a building beautifully.
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| The front of the mosque, decorated with inlaid marble. |
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| Some of the vivid colours that the mosque would have been decorated in, still preserved. |
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| Getting arty, taking pictures of the beautiful carved writing around the mosque. |
After a quick pause to enjoy the glorious
sunshine, we made our way around the corner to the Crafts Museum. Here they had
examples of traditional handicrafts from all over India including types of wall
paintings, sculptures and fabrics in the textile gallery. They had also set up
a little craft village where you could watch traders from all over India practicing their craft, from weaving to paper crafts and metalwork. There was
also some traditional music and dancing going on to accompany your visit! One
of the more striking things amongst their collections was a huge wooden
portable shrine which you can see below. This structure, which was the height
of a two storied house, would be wheeled from town to town during festivals to
be used as a shrine to one of the Hindu Gods.
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