I got a book.
Maybe I mentioned this already, but I got a book. It's a travel book specifically on Delhi, and takes the approach of moving through the city based on it's history. So start with the Qutb Minar complex, which is what I did and what I'm about to show you, and then start bobbing around moving forward in time as you go. Which I didn't and I'm not about to show you.
I'm not sure how I'm going to move around Delhi (aside from the obvious metro and autorickshaw). Part of this is that my friend James is showing up in ten days, and in the two weeks he is here I expect that we'll be seeing plenty in Delhi, and outside of it as well. So I'm not quite sure what to do. Yes, all of these things are worth seeing more than once, but I don't think I want to see them, and then see them again within a week or so. Yes, I was able to do that about seven times with Star Wars: A New Hope, but that was 1977, and life was simpler.
So I'm feeling a bit frozen, do not want to build a snowman, and am trying to figure out what to do. I may get out of town for a couple of days. I may go to the National Art Gallery. I may wander the streets clueless. I don't know.
This feeling comes along every once and awhile, and it's not unique to the trip as I certainly get it at home in Toronto from time to time. The "I don't know what to do but I should do something, why am I wasting my life like this when everyone else seems so productive and doing such amazing things why don't I do amazing things, I am totally sucking" feeling.
Sometimes though we just need to stop. Or at least, sometimes it would appear that I just need to stop, and I'm assuming the bulk of you are like that too because misery loves company. Not that I'm miserable, far from it. I'm just kinda at a loss right now as to what to do and instead of figuring it out I am vomitting my waffling, whinging, and whining into my blog so that the non-sequitur that is about to happen is even more of a relief to you than usual.
The Qutb Minar and much of the complex that surrounds it date back the 12th-13th centuries, and are some, if not the, earliest Islamic buildings in India. Started by the first Muslim Sultan of Delhi, Qutbuddin Aibak, the minar is about 73 metres high. So, tall.
There is an inner stairwell and people used to be allowed to climb to the top for what is presumably a good view, however that operation got shut down after a very sad incident involving a blackout and a stampede of people trying to get out of the tower.
That said, it is quite beautiful on the outside.
Beside the minar is the mosque, or at least what is the walls of the first mosque. As rulers came and went so did plans to extend the mosque, so there are additional walls, or portions thereof, leftover from those projects.
When the first mosque was being built they were in a big hurry so reused building materials, including pillars, from the Hindu temples that had been on this site and around the area.
Thing is, Hindu ornamentation is all good with people and animals, so when the rather ornate pillars were reused in the mosque, all of the faces got hacked away.
Other traditional Hindu symbols such as the wheel and lotus flower remained intact.
When combined with the ornate script carved into the screen and throughout other areas of the mosque, you really do get something that I would imagine is pretty unique in terms of overall aesthetic and ornamentation.
This is the Alai Minar. It was started later and never completed. Had it been completed it would have been twice the size of the Qutb Minar and this place would likely go by a different name in all of the guide books.
It's massive.
That's Iltutmish's Tomb, and while it doesn't necessarily look like much from the outside, the inside tells a different story.
Just more of the complex walls.
And I don't mean to say that the walls themselves are complex, most of them seem pretty straight forward, they just make up a complex. And the complex itself isn't overly complex, in fact, it's rather straight forward as well. I think the only complexity here actually is the mixed use of the word complex, and it's only complex because I keep saying it and trying to explain my use of it when that wasn't necessary to begin with. But the thing is, I have a book, I used the audio guide, I even have wikipedia open in another tab, and really, I just don't want to start giving you names and dates of places, so I'm a bit at a loss for what to say, but for whatever reason feel like I should be saying something.
And if you read the above you will, had you still had one, have no doubt remaining in regard to my ability as an editor.
This is the tomb of Alauddin Khili and the college. Meaning it's a tomb AND a there's a college, not that someone buried a college.
Actually, for all intensive purposes the college did end up being buried, as the complex was "rediscovered" at some point. What point I can't tell you right now as my book doesn't say, I don't remember what the audio guide mentioned, wikipedia was a big fail on this detail, and for whatever reason the site that I think will answer my question is failing to open.
So we move on.
College, or Medersa, or Madrasa, all pretty much the same. I got into the habit of using Medersa when talking about them in Morocco, and that is likely the french influence. Just like I was saying Palais, from time to time. So perhaps I should switch to Madrasa.
Whatever, the school.
Speaking of which.
I saw two school groups there, both in uniform, one girls, one boys. Girls were doing a decent job of pretending to be interested in wherever they were. Boys were busy running around trying to shake anybody with a cameras hand.
Spot the squirrelmunk.
Yes, squirrelmunk, It looks like a chipmunk but it is apparently a squirrel, so people, or at least the person I was talking to, likes to call them squirrelmunks.
This is the Alai Darwaza, same Alai that had got started on the really massive minar but didn't get it done, and who is actually the Alauddin who did complete the Madrasa. It's the main gateway into the mosque and was added early in the 14th century.
So you know two out of three of these. The third one is the tomb of Imam Zamin, the sufi saint Imam Muhammad Ali who died in the early-mid 16th century.
A word of advice. When exiting this tomb do not, under any circumstances, be looking down trying to adjust your audio guide. This results in cranking your head against the door lintel, which is quite low. It's also marble. Marble is quite beautiful. It is also quite hard.
I enjoyed my pace when I visited the Qutb Minar. I wasn't in a rush, and hadn't planned on running anywhere else for the day, so took my time, listened to the audio guide with little distraction, then took some time taking pictures, and then eventually settled down in the park and read my book for awhile. Made for a good day.
Delhi can be a hectic place. Mostly it's the constant vehicular conversation going on (horns) all times of day and night that do it I think. But Delhi also has alot of tranquility about it - you just need to find those places where things get muted a bit, and then stop. The park area in the Qutb complex is certainly one of them.
See. Squirrelmunk.
Maybe I mentioned this already, but I got a book. It's a travel book specifically on Delhi, and takes the approach of moving through the city based on it's history. So start with the Qutb Minar complex, which is what I did and what I'm about to show you, and then start bobbing around moving forward in time as you go. Which I didn't and I'm not about to show you.
I'm not sure how I'm going to move around Delhi (aside from the obvious metro and autorickshaw). Part of this is that my friend James is showing up in ten days, and in the two weeks he is here I expect that we'll be seeing plenty in Delhi, and outside of it as well. So I'm not quite sure what to do. Yes, all of these things are worth seeing more than once, but I don't think I want to see them, and then see them again within a week or so. Yes, I was able to do that about seven times with Star Wars: A New Hope, but that was 1977, and life was simpler.
So I'm feeling a bit frozen, do not want to build a snowman, and am trying to figure out what to do. I may get out of town for a couple of days. I may go to the National Art Gallery. I may wander the streets clueless. I don't know.
This feeling comes along every once and awhile, and it's not unique to the trip as I certainly get it at home in Toronto from time to time. The "I don't know what to do but I should do something, why am I wasting my life like this when everyone else seems so productive and doing such amazing things why don't I do amazing things, I am totally sucking" feeling.
Sometimes though we just need to stop. Or at least, sometimes it would appear that I just need to stop, and I'm assuming the bulk of you are like that too because misery loves company. Not that I'm miserable, far from it. I'm just kinda at a loss right now as to what to do and instead of figuring it out I am vomitting my waffling, whinging, and whining into my blog so that the non-sequitur that is about to happen is even more of a relief to you than usual.
The Qutb Minar and much of the complex that surrounds it date back the 12th-13th centuries, and are some, if not the, earliest Islamic buildings in India. Started by the first Muslim Sultan of Delhi, Qutbuddin Aibak, the minar is about 73 metres high. So, tall.
There is an inner stairwell and people used to be allowed to climb to the top for what is presumably a good view, however that operation got shut down after a very sad incident involving a blackout and a stampede of people trying to get out of the tower.
That said, it is quite beautiful on the outside.
Beside the minar is the mosque, or at least what is the walls of the first mosque. As rulers came and went so did plans to extend the mosque, so there are additional walls, or portions thereof, leftover from those projects.
When the first mosque was being built they were in a big hurry so reused building materials, including pillars, from the Hindu temples that had been on this site and around the area.
Thing is, Hindu ornamentation is all good with people and animals, so when the rather ornate pillars were reused in the mosque, all of the faces got hacked away.
Other traditional Hindu symbols such as the wheel and lotus flower remained intact.
When combined with the ornate script carved into the screen and throughout other areas of the mosque, you really do get something that I would imagine is pretty unique in terms of overall aesthetic and ornamentation.
This is the Alai Minar. It was started later and never completed. Had it been completed it would have been twice the size of the Qutb Minar and this place would likely go by a different name in all of the guide books.
That's Iltutmish's Tomb, and while it doesn't necessarily look like much from the outside, the inside tells a different story.
Just more of the complex walls.
And I don't mean to say that the walls themselves are complex, most of them seem pretty straight forward, they just make up a complex. And the complex itself isn't overly complex, in fact, it's rather straight forward as well. I think the only complexity here actually is the mixed use of the word complex, and it's only complex because I keep saying it and trying to explain my use of it when that wasn't necessary to begin with. But the thing is, I have a book, I used the audio guide, I even have wikipedia open in another tab, and really, I just don't want to start giving you names and dates of places, so I'm a bit at a loss for what to say, but for whatever reason feel like I should be saying something.
And if you read the above you will, had you still had one, have no doubt remaining in regard to my ability as an editor.
This is the tomb of Alauddin Khili and the college. Meaning it's a tomb AND a there's a college, not that someone buried a college.
Actually, for all intensive purposes the college did end up being buried, as the complex was "rediscovered" at some point. What point I can't tell you right now as my book doesn't say, I don't remember what the audio guide mentioned, wikipedia was a big fail on this detail, and for whatever reason the site that I think will answer my question is failing to open.
So we move on.
College, or Medersa, or Madrasa, all pretty much the same. I got into the habit of using Medersa when talking about them in Morocco, and that is likely the french influence. Just like I was saying Palais, from time to time. So perhaps I should switch to Madrasa.
Whatever, the school.
Speaking of which.
I saw two school groups there, both in uniform, one girls, one boys. Girls were doing a decent job of pretending to be interested in wherever they were. Boys were busy running around trying to shake anybody with a cameras hand.
Spot the squirrelmunk.
Yes, squirrelmunk, It looks like a chipmunk but it is apparently a squirrel, so people, or at least the person I was talking to, likes to call them squirrelmunks.
This is the Alai Darwaza, same Alai that had got started on the really massive minar but didn't get it done, and who is actually the Alauddin who did complete the Madrasa. It's the main gateway into the mosque and was added early in the 14th century.
So you know two out of three of these. The third one is the tomb of Imam Zamin, the sufi saint Imam Muhammad Ali who died in the early-mid 16th century.
A word of advice. When exiting this tomb do not, under any circumstances, be looking down trying to adjust your audio guide. This results in cranking your head against the door lintel, which is quite low. It's also marble. Marble is quite beautiful. It is also quite hard.
I enjoyed my pace when I visited the Qutb Minar. I wasn't in a rush, and hadn't planned on running anywhere else for the day, so took my time, listened to the audio guide with little distraction, then took some time taking pictures, and then eventually settled down in the park and read my book for awhile. Made for a good day.
Delhi can be a hectic place. Mostly it's the constant vehicular conversation going on (horns) all times of day and night that do it I think. But Delhi also has alot of tranquility about it - you just need to find those places where things get muted a bit, and then stop. The park area in the Qutb complex is certainly one of them.
See. Squirrelmunk.
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