Delhi

 Delhi, India
Dec 162013
 

This morning we once again hired a driver to take us around some sights.  We started with the India Gate, which, like all triumphal gates and arches is a memorial to the fallen of war.  The interesting thing was the men sitting under the gate making a flower mandala (about 50 X 50 feet), and the many, many children that had come on field trips.

This is a good point to make an observation from our arrival.  When we first started driving into Delhi I felt as though I was back in Saudi, the trees are plentiful but brown with dust and the bushes are scruffy and look to be struggling to survive.  The rains will come later this month and in January (not the monsoons, just the regular rains) and will wash away the dust, but for now it is a bit sad looking.  However, we have beautiful weather, with nice gentle breezes and cool evenings.

 

With the India Gate at our backs we drove up a gentle long slope flanked with a continuous length of grass to the Presidents Palace. The Palace originally the Rashtrapati Bhavan was designed by famed British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens as the British Viceroy’s Palace. You are unable to go onto the grounds, but you can go right up to the ornate gate designed by Lutyens.

 
I studied Lutyens in school and many of you may know the name by the famous benches he designed.  What we did not study was how much work he did in India.  He designed cottages throughout a section of Delhi in what is called Lutyens Delhi.  Lutyens was responsible for much of the civic and residential design of India when it was under British Rule during the 1920’s and 1930’s.
Our driver was Sikh and we are pretty sure he wanted to pray, so he asked if we were interested in seeing the gurudwara (place of worship).  It was amazing.  He encouraged me to take photographs and the place was very welcoming.  

There was a giant pool with catfish and koi, I asked what the pool was for and he said if you had worries you came and washed your self of them.  We didn’t see anyone in the pool, but it was four times the size of an Olympic pool, and surrounded by an inlaid marble floor and a large colonnade. 

They also had a commercial kitchen with volunteers making food in some of the largest pots you can imagine.  They feed anyone that comes to the door.  Again, he encouraged me to take pictures, it was really an interesting experience.
 

Our next stop was going to be the Lotus Temple.  It is a Baha’i House of Worship designed by Persian architect Fariburz Sahba.  It is a giant unfurling 27-petaled white marble lotus.  It sits on 94 acres and is meant to be a place of reflection.  The Baha’i of Persia believe that all of humanity is one race.

While we did drive by it, the amount of people that were there made even me say, no thanks.  There were thousands upon thousands of people waiting to get in.  I do not know if it was a special day, or simply the way it always is, but there were hundreds and hundreds of school buses and tourist buses all around the 94 acres, so we decided it was going to have to be for another time.

We called it a day around 3:30.  While, that seems pretty darn early for me, it is exhausting being out and about in Delhi.  The constant traffic, the overwhelming noises just drain you.  It was nice to come back to the soothing calm and beauty of our hotel, which has large grounds and utter peace.