India Travel

Firoz Shah Kotla in Central New Delhi

Related Properties from Gurgaon

Cultural centres and libraries in Delhi

There is nearly always some cultural activity going on in Delhi - check at the tourist office, or get hold of local newspapers and publications like First City and Delhi Diary. Alliance Franchise, D13 NDSE Part II. Hosts film shows and has an art gallery. British Council, 17 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Talks, film shows and concerts, plus a good library and reading room and internet. India International Centre, 40 Lodi Estate. Daily films, lectures, dance, and music performances; look up listings magazines or enquire by phone, Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, 35 Firoz Shah Rd. Delhi's premier art academy, with an extensive

Sangeet Natak Akademi in Central New Delhi

India's premier institution for music (sangeet), dance (natak), and the performing arts, Sangeet Natak Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, Firoz Shah Road (Mon-Fn 9.30am-6pm; free), is more of a resource centre than a museum, with a large audiovisual archive. A gallery also displays an extensive collection of folk and classical musical instruments, masks and costumes, while its library holds all sorts of rare and otherwise unobtainable volumes.

Hauz Khas in South Delhi

Hauz Khas, the Soho ot Delhi, is a wealthy suburban development, packed with boutiques and restaurants, 12km southwest of Connaught Place.The "village", as it is known, is just of Aurobindo Marg (or the Delhi—Mehrauli Road), which leads from die centre to the Qutb Minar Complex, and adjacent to a pleasant deer park. The road through the shopping enclave leads to the ruins of Ala-ud-din-Khalji's large tank (enclosed reservoir) known as Hauz-i-Alai, built early in the fourteenth century to supply the inhabitants of Sin, Delhi's second city. It was expanded almost fifty years later by Firoz Shah Tughlak, who added a

North of the Old City in Central New Delhi

Just north of Old Delhi, not far from the Inter-state Bus Terminal, the peaceful Qudsia Gardens are a fading reminder of the magnificent pleasure gardens commissioned in the mid-eighteenth century by Queen Qudsia. favourite mistress of Muhammad Shah, and mother of Ahmed Shah. The original mosque still stands, but part of the park was taken over by the British Freemasons, who built a hall and banned Indians from entering the park in the afternoons. There's also a Hindu monument here; a mounted figure represents the valiant Pratap Singh who is famed for his unfaltering defiance of Akbar. Near the gardens,

Safdarjang’s Tomb in South Delhi

The tomb of Safdarjang (daily dawn to dusk; Rs5). die Moghul viceroy ot Avadh under Muhammad Shah (1719-48), and the father of the Nawab of Avadh, Shuja-ud-Daula. stands at the junction of Lodi Road and Aurobindo Marg, 5km southwest of Connaught Place; take bus #560 from Jantar Mantar. Built between 1753 and 1774, it is one of the last in the tradition of Moghul garden tombs. At the centre of another charbagh. reached through a grand dou-ble-storeyed gateway off a busy main road to the east, the double-storeyed mausoleum, built ot red and buff sandstone and relieved by marble, rises

Khirki-ki-Masjid in South Delhi

Firoz Shah's Khirki-ki-Masjid, "The Mosque of Windows", famous for its heavy stone lattice windows, lies in the middle of one of South Delhi's villages close to the site of jahanpanah, Delhi's fourth city, 4km east of Qutb Minar and 13km south of Connaught Place. The battered bastions of the squat double-storeyed mosque, flanked by short minarets, give it a fortress-like aspect. Its unusual roof- there are only two covered mosques in north India - consisting of 25 squares capped by domes and flat sections, is open at the centre to allow light into a dark pillared courtyard, plagued by bats.

Old Delhi (Shahjahanabad) in Central New Delhi

Although it's not in fact the oldest part of Delhi, the seventeenth-century city of Shahjahanabad, built by the Moghul emperor. Shah Jahan, is known as OLD DELHI. The original city walls spread for seven miles, enclosing the sprawling fort, Lai Qila, and the formidable Jami Masjid, or "Friday Mosque'l. Old Delhi's mam thoroughfare, Chandni Chowk, a seething mass ot hooting, pushing cars, tempos, cycle rickshaws and ox carts, was once a sublime canal lined with trees and some of the most opulent bazaars of the East. Today the city walls have crumbled, and houses and shops have long since spilled

Arrival and information in Delhi

Delhi is India's main point of arrival for overseas visitors, and has two airports, one domestic and one international. State buses from all over the country pull into the Inter-state Bus Terminal in Old Delhi, while private buses stop in the more central location close to New Delhi railway station. Trains arrive at the railheads in Old or New Delhi, both well connected to Connaught Place, the commercial centre of the city, by rickshaw and taxi. For a summary of the kinds of accommodation available in different areas of the city, which may well determine where you head first, see p.

Pandua in Central Bengal

The splendid Adina Masjid at PANDUA, 18km north of Malda, built by Sikander Shah around 1370, was in its day the largest mosque in the subcontinent. It now lies in ruins but these still betray the origin of much of the building materials - carved basalt masonry from earlier Hindu temples was used to support 88 brick-built arches and 378 identical small domes, the design following that of the great eighth-century mosque of Damascus. Other monuments include the Eklakhi mausoleum - one of the first square brick tombs in Bengal with a carved Ganesh on the doorway; and Qutb Shahi Masjid,

Central New Delhi

The modern area of CENTRAL NEW DELHI, with its wide tree-lined avenues and solid colonial architecture, has been the seat of central government since 1931. At its hub. the royal mall. Rajpath. runs from palatial Rashtrapati Bhavan, in the west, to the India Gate war memorial in the east. At the north edge of the new capital lies the thriving business centre, Connaught Place. where neon advertisements for Wimpy, American Express, hotels and countless airline offices adorn the flat roofs and colonnaded verandas of high white buildings that curve around a central park to form an almost perfect circle. Central New

Detiels of Delhi

Delhi was marked by agrarian reforms, and the establishment in 1303 of Siri, the second city of Delhi, built in characteristically ornate marble and red sandstone. Near present-day Hauz Khas. it grew into a flourishing commercial centre. Ala-ud-din died a disappointed man. however, as cracks appeared in his dream of empire; the ensuing period of confusion only ended when Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq proclaimed himself" Sultan in 1320. Ghiyas-ud-din in turn built a city fortress, at Tughluqabad. 8km east of Qutb. but Delhi's third city was occupied for just five years from 1321, when the capital was shifted 1100km south to Daulatabad in

Sound and light shows in Central New Delhi

Each night a Sound and Light show takes place in the Red Fort: the palaces are dramatically lit, and a historical commentary blares from crackly loudspeakers. Trie show starts after sunset and lasts an hour (in Hindi Feb-April & Sept-Oct 7pm, May-Aug 7.30pm, Nov-Jan 6pm; in English Feb-April & Sept-Oct 8.30pm, May-Aug 9pm, Nov-Jan 7.30pm; Rs30; S011/327 4580). The mosquitoes are ferocious, so bring repellent. Heavy monsoon rains may affect summer shows. Khas Mahal was used by the emperor, who would appear here daily before throngs gathered on the riverbanks below. In 1911, when Delhi was declared capital, King George V

Manek Chowk and the Tomb of Ahmed Shah in Ahmedabad

East of the jami Masjid, the jewellery and textiles market, Manek Chowk is a bustling hive of colour where jewellers work in narrow alleys amid newly dyed and tailored cloth. Immediately outside the east entrance of the mosque, the square Tomb of Ahmed Shah I, who died in 1442, stands surrounded by pillared verandas. Women are not permitted to enter the central chamber, where his grave, and those of his son and grandson, lie shrouded in cloth. Further into the market area, you'll find the mausoleum of Ahmed Shah's queens, Rani-ka-Hazira, surrounded by the dyers' colourful stalls. Its plan is identical

Agra Fort at the Western UP

The high red-sandstone ramparts of Agra Fort (dawn to dusk; Rs505 [Rs20]) dominate a bend in the River Yamuna, 2km northwest of the Taj Mahal. Akbar laid the foundations of this majestic citadel, built between 1565 and 1573 in the form of a half moon, on the remains of earlier Rajput fortifications. Agra Fort developed as the seat and stronghold of the Moghul empire for successive generations: Akbar constructed the walls and gates, his grandson, Shah Jahan, had most of the principal buildings erected, and Aurangzeb, the last great emperor, was responsible for the ramparts. The curved bastions of the sandstone

Purana Qila in South Delhi

The majestic fortress of Purana Qila, whose crumbling ramparts dominate busy Mathura Road. 4km southeast of Connaught Place, is often said to stand on the site of Indraprastha, the city of the Pandavas. oi Mahabharala fame. More certainly, it was the centre of the sixth city of Delhi, created by Humayun, the second Moghul emperor, as Din-Panah, and renamed Shergarh by Sher Shah, who briefly displaced him. Purana Qila is served by buses between Delhi Gate and Sundernagar, such as #423 and #438. The #411 continues to Nizamuddin. and #482 goes on to Kalkaji. Two principal buildings survive to hint at

The Town of Lucknow in the Central UP

Most of Lucknow's monuments are spread along or near the southern bank of the Gomti, a sluggish weed-covered stream that most of the year swells with the monsoon, and becomes crowded with the small dugout boats of local fishermen. Close to the main central bridge lies the modern commercial centre of Hazratganj, with the Shah Najaf Imambara to its north near the river-bank. Further west, beyond the ruins of the Residency, the road passes the majestic Bara Imambara, leading through the large gate of Rumi Darwaza to the Hussainabad Imambara. South of Hussainabad, between Hazratganj and Charbagh, the old city

The growing city in Delhi

Although sixty percent of Delhi-ites are born elsewhere, the city's population has grown over forry percent in the last decade and now stands at around fourteen million. Rapid growth has seen Delhi spilling into the surrounding states, creating satellite developments such as Gurgaon to the south. The city has been attracting its fare share of industrial development in the last two decades, with an influx of technocrats, specialists and fortune seekers to match. In a heady atmosphere of optimism, around 9000 new industrial units sprang up every year during the 1990s. Despite this new-found affluence, a staggering third of the

Some history of Orchhas in Madhya Pradesh

According to one legend, the name of Orchhas founding dynasty, the Bundelas, derives from an eleventh-century ancestor who sacrificed five severed heads (or five drops of his own blood) to the mountain goddess Vindhyabatha - a deed that earned him the epithet of "Vindhyela", or "he who offered blood". Expelled by his brothers from their homeland near Varanasi, Vindhyela and his descendants roamed central India until finally settling at Garkhundar, the first capital of Bundelkhand. Pushed on by the Delhi Sukan Tuqluq late in the fifteenth century, the Bundelas decamped 45km to a more remote and defensible jungle site. The

Tughluqabad in South Delhi

On a rocky escarpment, 8km east of Qutb Minar and 15km southeast of Connaught Piace on the Mehrauli-Badarpur Road, stand the crumbling 6.5-kilometre-long battlements of the third city of Delhi. Tughluqabad. built during the short reign of Ghiyas-ud-dinTughluq (1321-25).After the kings death the city was deserted, probably due to the lack of a clean water source nearby. The huge ruins are almost entirely abandoned, overgrown with scrubland and home to nomadic Gujars and rhesus monkeys - which is seen by some as a fulfilment of a curse by the Sufi saint. Sheikh Nizamuddin Aulia. Divided into three main portions, Tughluqabad had

Diwan-i-am and the great courtyard of the Agra in the Western UP

Once through the Amar Singh Gate, ignore, for the time being the complex of ornately carved buildings on your right and continue straight ahead through a second gate to a spacious enclosure dominated by the graceful Diwan-i-Am (Hall of Public Audience). Open on three sides, the sandstone pillared hall, which replaced an earlier wooden structure, was constructed by Shah Jahan in 1628 and. after use as an arsenal by the British, was restored in 1876 by Sir John Strachey. Three rows of white polished stucco pillars topped by peacock arches support a flat roof; the elegance of the setting would