Two days in Delhi--Part 1

I have childhood memories of living in Delhi in a beautiful house with a rose garden in front. We moved to Chennai when I was six and I had never visited Delhi again, until recently. This month, we decided to travel to Delhi and Shimla for our vacation. We decided to stay with our friends in Gurgaon for a day and then take a train to Shimla. So we flew to Delhi early on a Saturday morning. My daughter was all excited, even after we woke her up 5am. We reached Delhi by 9.45 am and then we went to our friend's place in Gurgaon. My first impression of Delhi was that it was definitely on a much larger scale than Chennai. It was as though Chennai was a wannabe metro. There were long stretches of flyovers, with two lanes on either side, signs for various places and exits clearly marked. The traffic was smooth and the cars sped past us. As we neared Gurgaon, it was as though we were entering the highway city. We were on a high way and we could see hotels and offices on either side of the road. It was as though all the big names in finance, telecom, construction, travel and other businesses had an office in Gurgaon. Most buildings looked like offices and the hotels seemed to be built to cater to the number business travellers who might want to stay close to the airport. It took us about 45 min to reach the apartment complex which was a huge DLF construction. Almost all buildings were grey in colour with a glass facade. The only way to identify apartments was the lawn or the kids play area which may be visible if you look closely.

The area around our friend's apartment seemed like it was DLF city. Most of the buildings and the roads surrounding them were constructed by DLF.  I was impressed with the whole view. Even if it seemed grey and steel and glass, it did look professional and modern. We were now deep inside Gurgaon and I think I stopped seeing two wheelers a long time ago. There were cars, taxis or cabs and rikshaws (yes pulled by men, for travelling within apartment complexes I suppose).

You can see a woman walking to the yoga class in the apt. complex

 
 
We spent a little time soaking in the comfort of our friend's apartment. It was cool, much cooler than Chennai. The building opposite to the apartment seemed like it was a BPO, there were people working there throughout the day and night. We had so many places to visit in Delhi and yes, everything was about an hour's drive from Gurgaon. We realised that to get a real feel for the city of Delhi we had to travel to its belly, the old areas where you could see 'gol gappas' and 'samosas' being sold on the footpath. We planned to visit Qutab Minar and Bahai Temple, two places we could travel to within an hour.

So we left Grey Gurgaon and took the road to Bahai Temple. Slowly, we came close to the crowded and historic parts of Delhi. We could see autos, two wheelers, buses and cars.  I was impressed by the huge local crowd which was visiting the Bahai Temple. There were many foreign tourists and volunteers too. The Bahai philosophy is old, started in 1844 by The Bab in Persia but it became international in the early twentieth century. The Bahai faith preaches equality of men and women and universal peace. We were asked to maintain silence inside the temple and this reminded me of my experience in Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville temple. The Bahai temple is surrounded by a vast area of empty land, landscaped and maintained but does not seem to have anything else to offer.

Our next stop was the Qutub Minar and this was on our way back to Gurgaon. We walked into the most famous monument in Delhi, seen so many times in our history and geography textbooks. It was beautiful, the evening sky and the brown sand stone structure of the Minar.

We caught a beautiful scene of parrots flying across the arches and the sunset. It was really awe inspiring that all these structures were added just as a part of the huge complex of the mosque. The mosque only remains in ruins. The Qutab and the iron pillar are the main attractions. But the ruins of the mosque do show that it must have been huge and impressive by itself. The adjacent buildings were meant for the scholars and students to stay and study.

 Well, at sunset, we were asked to leave Qutab minar which we still hadn't seen completely. But we moved on as the girls were tired and we had had a long day. I will continue with my travel to Shimla in the next post....