Asian Oddesy
28th Aug 2006DELHI Delhi is the symbol of old India and new . . . even the stones here whisper to our ears of the ages of long ago and the air we breathe is full of the dust and fragrances of the past, as also of the fresh and piercing winds of the present. Jawaharlal Nehru On first impressions, DELHI, with its jam-packed streets, tower blocks and temples, forts, mosques and colonial mansions, can be both disorienting and fascinating. It certainly takes a while to find your feet, as you attempt to weave a path through buses, trucks, nippy modern cars, mopeds, rickshaws, cows, bullock carts, hand-pulled trolleys and even the occasional elephant being ridden along with the flow of traffic. You'll find unlikely juxtapositions are everywhere you look: suit-and-tie businessmen rub shoulders with traditionally dressed orthodox Hindus and Muslims; groups of young Levis-clad Delhi-ites pile into burger joints, bars and discos; turbaned snake charmers tease hypnotizing moans out of curved pipes; pundits pontificate while sadhus smoke their chillums; and ragged beggars clutching dusty children plead for a little help towards a meal. Delhi's daunting scale becomes more manageable as you start to appreciate that, geographicall as well as historically, it consists of several distinct cities, an amalgamation and expansion of the "Seven Cities" of tradition (seven fortress settlements built at different times here by different rulers). The hub of the metropolis is New Delhi, an orderly plan of wide roads lined with sturdy colonial buildings, which was established soon after the imperial capital of British India moved here from Calcutta in 1911. Many of the city's hotels are here, concentrated amid the colonnaded facades of Connaught Place. A couple of kilometres south, the broad, green eastwest swathe of Raj Path links India Gate and the Indian parliamentary buildings, once considered to be the architectural jewels in the Imperial crown. Old Delhi, Shah Jahan's seventeenth-century capital of Shahjahanabad, lies 3km northwest of Connaught Place. This is Delhi at its most quintessentially Indian, where the traditional lifestyle of its predominantly Muslim population has changed little over two hundred years. A visit to the mighty Lal Qila or Red Fort and Jami Masjid, India's largest mosque, is a must, and should be combined with a stroll through the area's ancient bazaars, a warren of clustered houses, buzzing with commotion, and infused with aromatic smells drifting from open-fronted restaurants, spice shops and temples. Firozabad, another of Delhi's ex-capitals, is centred around Delhi Gate, while the other five former capitals, further south, are today all but deserted, standing as impressive reminders of long-vanished dynasties. Among them you'll find the towering free-standing twelfth-century column erected by Qutb-ud-din Aibak, the Qutb Minar it marks the first capital, Qila Rai Pithora, and signalled the development of the city that visitors see today. Walls and dilapidated pillars survive from the fourteenth-century city of Tughluqabad, and Purana Qila, the sixth capital. Interspersed between these historic ruins are the grand tombs of Delhi's former rulers, plus a plethora of Hindu temples, and domed mosques, introduced by the Muslims, which dramatically changed the conventional mould of Indian cities. Perhaps the finest expressions of the Moghuls' architectural genius were the grand charbagh (quartered garden) mausoleums of Humayun's Tomb, and, most famously, the Taj Mahal in Agra. The major monument of the great Moghul period is Lal Qila (the Red Fort) in Old Delhi. As befits a national capital, Delhi, with its many museums and art treasures, cultural performances and crafts, provides a showcase of the country's diverse heritage. Shops trade in goods from every corner of India, and with a little legwork you can find anything from Tibetan carpets, antiques and jewellery to modern art and designer clothes. After years of economic isolation caused by India's draconian post-Independence trading laws, Delhi is enjoying a tremendous economic boom. With plenty of spending money and a new sense of confidence among the wealthier classes, the city now boasts a great nightlife scene, with designer bars, chic cafés and good clubs. Its auditoria host a wide range of national music and dance events, drawing on the richness of India's great classical traditions. Smart new cinemas show innumerable Bollywood and Hollywood movies, while theatres hold performances in both Hindi and English. Delhi is both daunting and alluring, a sprawling metropolis with a stunning backdrop of ancient architecture. Once you've found your feet and got over the initial impact of the commotion, noise, pollution and sheer scale of the place, the city's geography slowly slips into focus. Monuments in sandstone and marble, which stand in assorted states of repair, are dotted around the city, concentrated in Old Delhi and in southern enclaves such as Hauz Khas. Delhi today, however, as experienced by its many thousands of visitors, centres very much around the imperial city built by the British from 1911 onwards. Most foreign travellers to India find it necessary to call in at some of the myriad of administrative offices that fill the formal buildings of Connaught Place, the heart of New Delhi. From here it's easy to visit one of many outstanding museums, stocked with artistic treasures from all over the country and recording the lives of India's political figureheads. History The earliest known settlement in the Delhi area, thought to have stood close to the River Yamuna (near the Purana Qila) between 1000 BC and the fourth century AD, has been identified with the city of Indraprastha, mentioned in the Mahabharata and by Ptolemy, who came here in the second century AD. However, modern Delhi is generally dated from the founding of Lal Kot by the Tomara Rajputs in 736 AD. In 1180, a rival Rajput clan, the Chauhans, ousted the Tomaras and renamed the walled citadel Qila Rai Pithora, the first city of Delhi. The Chauhans remained here for only a decade, though; in 1191, Muhammad Ghur invaded the northern plains from Afghanistan. Although he was assassinated in 1206, his Indian provinces, palaces and forts remained more or less intact in the hands of his Turkish general, Qutb-ud-din Aibak, an ex-slave who founded the Delhi Sultanate or Slave Dynasty the first major Muslim rulers of the subcontinent. He commenced the construction of the Qutb Minar, and was succeeded by Iltutmish (121127), arguably the greatest of the early Delhi sultans. In 1290, another group of Turks, the Khaljis, came to power, extending their dominion to the Deccan plateau of central India. Under their most illustrious king, Ala-ud-din Khalji (12961316), Siri, the second city of Delhi, was built in 1303 a flourishing commercial centre of characteristically ornate marble and red sandstone. Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq built Delhi's third city, a fortress, at Tughluqabad, 8km east of Qutb. It was occupied for just five years from 1321, when the capital was shifted 1100km south to Daulatabad in Maharashtra at great human cost. Water scarcity drove the Tughluqs back to Delhi in 1327, and the fourth new city, Jahanpanah, was built. The energies of the next sultan, Firuz Shah, were taken up with suppressing rebellion, as the Sultanate began to disintegrate, but he left his mark by moving the Ashokan pillars of Meerut and Topra to the new capital, the fifth city of Firozabad, built beside the river in 1354. The Tughluq line came to an end in 1398, when Timur (Tamerlane), a Central Asian Turk, sacked Delhi. His successors, the Sayyids (141444), were in turn ousted by Buhlul Lodi who established a dynasty that left behind the fine tombs and mosques still to be seen in the beautiful Lodi Gardens. The Lodi dynasty ended when Sultan Ibrahim Lodi died in battle, fighting the brilliant and enigmatic Babur (a descendent of Genghis Khan) in 1526. Babur's victory marked the dawn of the Moghul (a derivative of Mongol) dynasty, whose lengthy sojourn in power led to the eventual realization of the dream of an Indian empire that had so eluded the earlier Delhi Sultans. Babur was succeeded in 1530 by his son, Humayun who, in 1540, was pushed back to Persia by the Afghan king Sher Shah of Ser, and remained in exile there for fifteen years. King Sher Shah built the Din-Panah fort at Shergarh, which became Delhi's sixth capital, known today as Purana Qila. Humayun retook Delhi in 1555, but died the following year and was succeeded by his son Akbar, who then moved the capital to Agra. However, it was under Shah Jahan ("Ruler of the Universe"), that Delhi again became a magnificent imperial capital following the move of the court back here from Agra. Behind the ramparts of Delhi's seventh city, the walled city of Shahjahanabad, the mighty Red Fort, with its opulent palaces, and vast Jami Masjid, India's greatest mosque, rose to become the epitome of Moghul power. Shah Jahan was eventually deposed and imprisoned by his ruthless son, Aurangzeb, who ruled from Delhi until 1681, and then transferred the capital to the Deccan plateau. Following the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Delhi's government was controlled by courtiers, and the city fell victim to successive invasions. In 1739, Nadir Shah, the emperor of Persia, swept across north India and overcame Muhammad Shah in the Red Fort, taking away precious booty and slaughtering an estimated 15,000 of the city's inhabitants. The massacre hastened the demise of Moghuls, who by the end of the eighteenth century had been reduced by successive marauders Jats, Hindu Marathas and Afghans to puppet kings presiding over decaying palaces. By the time the British (who had already established toe-holds in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay) appeared on the scene in 1803, Delhi was a remote outpost of a spent empire, at the mercy of lawless tribes. The British swiftly took control, leaving the Moghul ruler, Bahadur Shah, with his palace and his pension, but no power. British forces fended off a number of Maratha attacks in the next decade, and faced determined opposition during 1857 when the Indian Mutiny (or "First War of Independence") broke out. Bahadur Shah was proclaimed Hindustani emperor in the Red Fort, and it took much bloodshed before the British regained the city. The British retained a hold on Delhi while administering affairs of state from their capital in Calcutta. When King George V came to India from England to be crowned as emperor in 1911, it was decided to make Delhi India's new capital. Fervent construction of bungalows, parliamentary buildings and public offices followed, and in 1931 Delhi was officially inaugurated as the capital of Britain's largest colonial possession. With India's declaration of Independence in 1947, the British, represented in Delhi by the viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, handed over power to the democratically elected Congress party under Nehru. Independence saw a mass migration of Muslims from Delhi to newly created Pakistan, and a similar influx of Hindus and Sikhs in the opposite direction. Info from: http://travel.roughguides.com/roughguides.html
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