Delhi March 21-25

My flight from Hyderabad arrived in Delhi at 12:45 on Thursday March 21 and I took a taxi to my hotel in Gurgaon, to the south of Delhi. I had picked my hotel to be within walking distance of the American Institute of Indian Studies. In the afternoon I walked around to the old town of Gurgaon, which is a typically impoverished Indian town with little in common with the glitzy malls and skyscrapers that are springing up elsewhere in Gurgaon.

The next morning on Friday March 22 I went to the American Institute of Indian Studies to browse in their art and archaeology library. At noon I walked the long distance to the HUDA City Centre metro, the terminal station of the metro line. I took the metro into the city and got off at the Lodi Gardens. I went to the national INTACH office there and chatted for a few minutes with Lalit Gupta, the head of INTACH; Rani Sarma had let him know I would be coming to introduce myself. I then walked around the Lodi Gardens with the monumental tombs of the Lodi sultans of Delhi and then went to the small Tibet House museum.

The Lodi Gardens

I then took the metro back to the end of the line and went to a nearby shopping area, where I had dinner at a fancy restaurant. I ended up with a bill for 1000 rupees = 20 US dollars. That was way more than I have ever paid for a meal before, due to a ten percent service charge, a 12.5 percent VAT tax, a five percent VAT tax surcharge and an additional seven percent mystery tax.

The next morning, Saturday March 23 I took an auto to the HUDA City Centre metro station; walking the full seven kilometer distance both ways yesterday was enough. I went to the Vasant Kunj housing colony to meet Banashree Baneerjee, a consultant in participatory planning who was involved in the 2002 Bhimunipatnam heritage workshop. In the afternoon I went to one of the big shopping malls in Gurgaon.

On Sunday March 24 I took the metro into the city. I went to the Lodi Gardens again and then Safdar Jung’s Tomb and Humayun’s Tomb in the area.

Lodi Gardens

Safdar Jung Tomb

Humayun’s Tomb

I then went to the neighborhood of the darghah (tomb shrine) of Nizam al-Din, the famous Sufi mystic who died in 1325. I saw there the tomb of the poet Ghalib, who died in 1869, and then the shrine of Nizam al-Din itself. I had been to all of these various places in 2001, but not since.

The tomb of Ghalib

The Nizam al-Din Darghah

On Monday March 25, I spent the day at the AIIS library, browsing through the archaeological excavation reports of the early Buddhist sites that I have been to.

That evening I went to the airport for my flight to Amman that left at 9:30 pm. I had booked an inexpensive flight, but at the cost of an eight-hour layover in Abu Dhabi. That, however, was not so bad, since I managed to sleep a good deal in the airport terminal and as always I could watch video podcasts on my iPad.