Travelling in Delhi (India) through William Dalrymple's book

I am in Delhi for two weeks and have been advised by a dear friend that I shouldn’t spend all my time in client offices and at home. “Get out and see the city!” It’s a good suggestion but I realize I have only three days to spare for this city tour. What’s the best way to the see the greatest things Delhi has to offer? Shall I take the Red Bus tour? No. That’s too mainstream. “Why don’t you read William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns and then go to places you find interesting?” my friend recommends. Super. That’s what I’m going to do. I head to the Full Circle bookstore in Khan Market. They have the book. I finish it the same day. It’s a great read.

Day 1

“In 1984, Delhi was a very different place to the vast, smoggy megalopolis it is today. I started writing City of Djinns in 1991, the year India began to open up its markets and liberate its economy. What the then Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh, did that year, changed India forever - and nowhere more so than Delhi. Since then, the city has grown exponentially, exploding out of its own boundaries and bursting across the borders of neighbouring states.” William Dalrymple, The City of Djinns (Reprint edn: New Delhi, Bloomsbury, 2017), (Introduction)

I was in Delhi only last year but that trip was for two days and spent almost exclusively in an office building in Connaught Place. I can’t say anything has changed in the last few months. The men stare less now. Have they become nicer or do I just notice them less? I can’t tell. But I’m less paranoid. Or maybe it’s my new haircut. I don’t know how the two are related but as soon as I got my boy cut, I felt like I could beat anybody up.

I decide to take an auto and head to Nigambodh Ghat. Dalrymple describes it as a place full of sadhus that transport him to Mahabharat’s Indraprastha.

I stop an autowalla

Me: Bhaisaab Nigambogh Ghat jana hai

Automan: Baithiye

After a few minutes

Automan: Madam, Nigambodh Ghat toh admi marne jata hai. Aap Delhi ghoom rahin hai? Rajghat jana chahiye. Wahan lejaoon? Zaroor koi galti huee hai

Me: Nahin bhaisahab Nigambodh Ghat hi jana hai.

Automan: Woh bhi koi ghoomne ki jagah hai? Aap Rajghat chaliye.

Me: Purani Dilli chhod denge? Turkman gate?

Automan: Theek hai.

“Turkman Gate on the south of the Old City is less crowded, but even more depressing. The area is named after an eleventh-century Turkoman nomad who turned Sufi and built his hermitage here; but the Punjabis who moved here in 1947 have confused the name and it is now known as Truckman Gate after the lorry drivers who come to eat in the roadside restaurants” William Dalrymple, The City of Djinns (Reprint edn: New Delhi, Bloomsbury, 2017), Pg. 55

It’s like coming out from a time machine. The glitzy stores of GK1 have gone. There are no big black SUVs with well-groomed women in expensive white shirts walking out of them. Here in fact, there aren’t even any white Indicas or Wagon Rs. Just auto rikshas and cycle rikshas for purani Delhi. White skull caps fill the area along with horns and screams of “Riksha chahiye?”. The streets are narrow and people are visibly poor. Construction workers sit outside a dilapidated building drinking chai. And there are street-side parking lots for cycle rikshas.

The gate outside Turkman Gate is shut. There’s a solitary guard inside who lets me in when I ask him to. “Zyada log nahin aate yahan,” he says. I hang around for a minute or so trying to savour the history. But there isn’t much to see. There’s the red-standstone gate with a dome on top and then a black railing around the area. Under the dome is the security guard’s chair. Can this ever be a bustling tourist spot? Ticketed and full of foreigners taking photographs; local guides flashing their ids at you and saying, “Madam, I’m registered guide”. I don’t know.

I read the inscription as I leave. “The Turkman Gate is one of the four surviving gateways of Shahjahanabad city located on the southwestern side. The gate constructed in 1658 AD is named after Shah Turkman who is buried nearby. The Gateway is two bay deep with a flat roof on the first bay and a doomed roof….ashlar blocks of red and white sandstone.” Trust the authorities to give you the most boring details about the place. Things that probably interest only an architect. Shams-ul-Arifeen Shah Turkman Bayabani or Shah Turkman came to Delhi when it was being invaded by Muhammad Ghori and built a home for himself here in Daryaganj when it was a jungle full of wild beasts. Tell us his story maybe?

As I walk back onto the street outside, the shouting autowallahs are no longer interested in me. “Ajmeri gate jaana hai.” They give me directions instead of offering me a ride. It’s terribly hot and noisy. And I can’t bear to hop on to a cycle riksha. I cringe at the thought of someone physically trying to move a riksha that’s 49 kgs heavier because of me. Then, I spot the perfect ride. A red battery operated cycle riksha. Bakhtar Ali agrees to take me around Old Delhi. Fortunately, he doesn’t have much in common with Dalrymple’s driver - Balwinder Singh

“Mr. Singh is in many ways an unattractive character. A Punjabi Sikh, he is the Essex Man of the East. He chews paan and spits the betel juice out of the window, leaving a red ‘go-fast’ stripe along the car’s right flank. He utters incoherent whoops of joy as he drives rickshaws on to the pavement or sends a herd of paper boys flying into a ditch. He leaps out of his taxi to urinate at the traffic lights, and scratches his groin as he talks. Like Essex Man, he is a lecher. His eyes follow the saris up and down the Delhi avenues; plump Sikh girls riding side-saddle on motorbikes are a particular distraction. Twice a week, when Olivia is not in the car, he offers to drive me to GB Road, the Delhi red light district: “Just looking’, he suggests.” William Dalrymple, The City of Djinns (Reprint edn: New Delhi, Bloomsbury, 2017), Pg. 17

We cross GB road on the way to Ajmeri Gate. I’ve half a mind of telling him to take me where the brothels are. What are brothels called in Hindi? But I decide against it. Let’s finish the “decent” stuff first. Bakhtar Ali stops his battery rikshaw at a signal and tells me “Yehi hai”.

Me: Par gate kahan hai?

Bakhtar Ali: Asli mein thodi na gate hai. Ajmeri gate yehi hai.

I wonder if he could be right. But knowing Delhi, he couldn’t be. I google Ajmeri Gate and figure that the gate does exist. I decide to walk to towards it. Within a minute Bakhtar Ali appears and asks me to hop on. “Gate hai. Mujhe pata nahi tha. Aaj tak dekha nahi.” We circle the area around the gate twice to find out how to enter the enclosure. Everything’s locked. But wait, there are some kids playing cricket inside. There are some broken rods near the main gate. I slip in.

“Ajmeri Gate (facing Ajmer) is square on plan and has different outer and inner elevation details. The rubble masonry structure is pierced by a huge, single-arched gateway. Flanked by semi-octagonal turrets…” I move towards the children playing cricket. Who’d have thought, Ajmeri gate would serve as a play area in a busy bazaar? Some of the children rush towards me and ask me to photograph them. I comply. Well, it’s doing better than Turkman Gate. Cricket-playing kids are better than a lonesome guard.

“Just as Partition resulted in prosperity and growth for the new Delhi, it led to impoverishment and stagnation for the old. The fabulous city which hypnotized the world travellers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the home of the great poets Mir, Zauq and Ghalib; the city of nautch girls and courtesans; the seat of the Emperor,....Since 1947 the Old City has survived only by becoming one enormous storehouse for North India’s wholesale goods; one by one the old palaces and mansions have been converted into godowns (warehouses) and stores.” William Dalrymple, The City of Djinns (Reprint edn: New Delhi, Bloomsbury, 2017), Pg. 50

Well, maybe that is their greatest use today. They’re landmarks. Turkman Gate and Ajmeri Gate probably help the operations folks at FlipKart or Amazon direct their delivery staff to the right godowns. By now, Bakhtar Ali is worried that I’m trying to give him the slip. He’s lurking around the gate to make sure, I don’t sneak away. I jump back on to his battery riksha and we’re on our way to find Haskar Haveli in Sita Ram Bazaar.

“At the end of Sita Ram Bazaar stands the Haskar Haveli. Here, little more than seventy years ago, India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, married his wife Kamla. The house belonged to one of the most distinguished of the Kashmiri Pandit families in Delhi, the Haskars, and was famed for its size and magnificence. The gatehouse survives still as a witness to this grandeur...Cusped sandstone arches are buried up to their capitals in rubble; vaults hang suspended in a litter of disintegrating brickwork. No one seems to care. It is as if the people of Delhi had washed their hands off the fine old mansions of the Old City in their enthusiasm to move into the concrete bunkers of the New.” William Dalrymple, The City of Djinns (Reprint edn: New Delhi, Bloomsbury, 2017), Pg. 56

Bakhtar Ali: Kaunsi Haveli?

Me: Haskar Haveli

Bakhtar Ali: Yeh toh suna nahi hai

Me: Pt. Nehru ki shaadi huee tha yahan

Bakhtar Ali: Yahan nahi hoga.

Me: Nahi yahin hai. Sita Ram Bazaar mein.

Bakhtar Ali: Pehle mein apko Jama Masjid le jata hoon. Wahan se pata karta hoon. Waise, abhi hum Sita Ram Bazaar mein hain.

Me: Theek hai.

The red sandstone and white marble are such a Shahjahan giveaway. He built Jama Masjid after he built the Red Fort, that stands just across the street. But that’s ticketed , guarded and a tedious place to get into. Fitting for a fort though. But a mosque that’s been attacked twice, 2006 and 2010, maybe deserves a more complex entry procedure. Of course, the metal detectors are in place but the guards are lax, sitting down in their plastic chairs and staring blankly at people who walk in and out. No questions, no bag check. Should I be thankful?

“The building had certainly seen better days. From my rooftop I could see that one side of the prayer hall roof had collapsed. The once gleaming whitewash was dark and smoke-blackened; in places the plaster had fallen away to reveal messy rubble-walling beneath. Goats grazed on the grass growing unkept between the paving stones. But despite the decay, the mosque still somehow retained a profound and venerable grandeur. Its strength lay in its simplicity.” William Dalrymple, The City of Djinns (Reprint edn: New Delhi, Bloomsbury, 2017), Pg. 251

Fortunately, this is no longer true. In 2006, funds were raised for some urgent repair work and the structure was restored. The prayer hall roof is just fine. It’s just that this evening, there aren’t too many people inside it. The people present at Jama Masjid this evening don’t seem to be too devout. They make the mosque look like a popular Friday evening hangout. The tall minarets, high towers and ample space make it an ideal place to relax perhaps. Lots of families are gathered in the open area and are busy chatting and taking selfies. They seem to be having a good time.

On my way out, I see a man collecting money from two foreigners for providing them with headgear to wear inside the mosque. This is just next to a signboard that says, “Head-scarves are free. Please report anyone demanding payment for these to the authorities.” Sigh.

I walk out hoping that Bakhtar Ali has figured out where Haskar Haveli is. He hasn’t. So we head to the next place on my list, Chandni Chowk.

“The greatest disappointment was Chandni Chowk. In the poems and travelogues, the Moonlight Bazaar is praised as a kind of Oriental Faubourg St Honoré, renowned for its wide avenues, its elegant caravanserais and it fabulours Mughal gardens. Having read the descriptions of this great boulevard, once the finest in all Islam, as you sit on your rickshaw and head on into the labyrinth you still half-expect to find its shops full of jasper and sardonyx for the Mughal builders, mother of pearl inlay for the pietra dura craftsmen; you expect to see strings of Bactrian camels from Kashgar and logs of cinnamon from Madagascar….

But instead, as you sit stranded in a traffic jam, half-choked by rickshaw fumes and the ammonia-stink of the municipal urinals, you see a sad vista of collapsing shop fronts and broken balustrades, tatty warehouses roofed with corrugated iron and patched with rusting duckboards. The canal which ran down the centre of the bazaar had been filled in; the trees have been uprooted. All is tarnished, fraying at the edges...A man grabs your arm and stage-whispers: ‘Sahib, you want carpets hashish smack brown sugar change money blue film sexy ladies no problem!’ William Dalrymple, The City of Djinns (Reprint edn: New Delhi, Bloomsbury, 2017), Pg. 54

Nobody makes me these offers. I jump out of the riksha and take a look at the shops that line the street. Cloth shops, dress designers,saree centres and ornaments. Nothing oriental about them. Dalrymple is right. It’s like any other bazaar, anywhere else in the country. The Ghantaghar is the only structure that seems to have retained its historical character. It’s been around since 1870. But now it’s close to 6 pm and the gate is locked.

A girl stands outside the gate, throwing grains at the pigeons inside. It’s symbolic of what has become of Old Delhi. Time, the love of concrete and the disregard for heritage have locked us out from the past. Sometimes through books and travelogues we come here and try to get a glimpse of what was.

Bakhtar Ali has given up finding out about Haskar Haveli. I pay him and he’s off. I find an auto to take me back to GK1. It starts raining on the way back and a few droplets fall on my notebook. The word “Haskar” is now a blotch of ink. The rain has decided to strike Haskar Haveli off my list.

Day 2

Much needs to be accomplished today if I am to visit all the places I’ve listed. I decide to take an auto instead of an Uber. They tend to be older and chattier.

Me: Indira Gandhi Museum, Safdarjung Tomb, Nizamuddin, Hauz Khas, Tughluqabad Fort, Nigambodh Ghat aur Qutub Minar jana hai.

Automan: Baithiye

Me: Aapka naam?

Automan: Chhotelal

Me: Poorna naam?

Automan: Chhotelal ji.

On a weekday afternoon, the Indira Gandhi Museum is full of people. You can’t go around without repeatedly saying, “excuse me.” It’s mostly old people carrying out the shenanigans of young people. Taking pictures of the museum and of course, of themselves. One man, with a selfie-stick is encouraging his son to pose for a photograph. “Beta, selfie lelo,” he says as he readies the shot. He’s taking the photograph, he’s not in the frame. Museums and mosques - this is what family outings in Delhi are made of. So much better than going to a mall.

Her home, a bungalow in pristine white with gardens all around, is understated. Her bedroom has a single bed, a study table and a book shelf. The living room isn’t as minimalistic. It’s got paintings and artefacts on every wall, easy chairs, sofas, carpets and lots of books. But there’s nothing opulent or intimidating about it. Most of the people at the museum are interested in looking at the family’s pictures displayed in the outermost rooms. There are very few people at the spot where she died. It’s easy to take a picture so I take one.

“As was her habit, Indira Gandhi had toast and fruit for breakfast. It was October 31 October 1984 and the bougainvillaea was in flower.

A 9.15 she stepped out of the portico of her white bungalow, crossed the lawns by the lotus pond, then passed into the dim green shade of the pipal avenue. There she smiled at her Sikh security guard, Sub-Inspector Beant Singh. Singh did not smile back. Instead he pulled out his revolver and shot her in the stomach. His friend, Constable Satwant Singh, then emptied the clip of his sten gun into her.” William Dalrymple, The City of Djinns (Reprint edn: New Delhi, Bloomsbury, 2017), Pg. 27

My visit is well-timed. 2017 marks the centenary year for Indira Gandhi. Sagarika Ghose and Jairam Ramesh have just released their books on her. And while she truly may have been India’s most powerful PM, in my mind her Operation Blue Star could have killed my father. He was a young Sikh Naval officer, dropping off a senior official’s wife in Delhi on June 06,1984. He was unaware of what was happening and waiting at New Delhi station for his train to Patiala. He was going for his annual leave. A stranger approached him and told him, “Sardaron ko maar rahein hain, aap yahan kya kar rahe ho?” My father jumped into the next moving train and reached home safely somehow. I hear that many Sikhs got murdered on the train he missed.

We move from one murder story to the next. Chhotelalji and I are now enroute Safdarjunj Tomb.

“One the death of Muhammed Shah, Safdarjung moved into take over. He seized the post of Vzier (Prime Minister) and within weeks Muhammed Shah’s ineffectual successor had been effectively excluded from all decisions; he remained a figurehead, left to console himself with drink, opium and his harem.

Eventually, however, Safdarjung overplayed his hand. His arrogance and bullying alienated the Imperial family; and in their desperation they called in the armies of the Hindu mahratta Confederacy from the Deccan to help rid them of their troublesome Vizier...

The tomb stands today as a telling memorial to the period. Most obviously, it demonstrates the strained circumstances of the age. Compared to the purity of the Taj Mahal - the spotless white marble, the unfussy shapes, the perfectly balanced design- Safdarjung tomb with its bulbous dome and stained sandstone walls seems somehow flawed and degenerate.” (P.157)

Maybe, Dalrymple’s description is a bit harsh. It doesn’t look all that bad to me. So what if other Delhi tombs were stripped for material to put this structure together? It provides a safe haven for young couples. I consider pointing my camera at them for proof but that’d just be rude. It does remind one of the Taj Mahal a bit and is an ideal location for a pre-wedding shoot. If you’re not getting married yet, you can get your Shadi.com pictures clicked here. The guards are non-interfering. Just don’t carry a tripod. After a while, I felt a bit out of place. I can almost hear them think. “Can’t she give us a little privacy?” I hurry towards the exit.

Next stop - Hauz Khas Fort. Hauz Khas Village leading upto the fort is upmarket, obviously expensive and quite clean. The fort itself has quite a bit to see. It’s got a water tank, mosque, seminary and a tomb.

“The Hauz Khas medresse was a college whose academic reputation was as wide as the Sultanate itself. Its principal hall, which still stands, is as long and as narrow as a ship, with delicately carved kiosks and balconies projecting out over the lake. Contemporary memoirs are as full of praise for the building’s beauty as they are for the work which took place within its walls: ‘Its magnificence, proportions and pleasant air makes it unique among the buildings of the world,’ wrote the chronicler Barni. ‘Indeed it could justifiably be compared to the palaces of ancient Babylon. People come from East and West in caravan after caravan just to look at it.’ “ (P.268)

A few scenes for Game of Thrones could be shot here. The stone structure overlooking the lake is magnificent. On a weekday evening the fort and lakeside are occupied by boy gangs, couples, joggers, kids playing badminton and college girls who just can’t get that perfect selfie. There’s even a dancer who’s trying to get some people-less shots of herself, entertaining the people around. But the guards come and tell her, “Ek do photo le sakte hain. Nach nach ke photo lena not allowed.” Not sure how they made that distinction.

It begins to rain. We have a little more ground to cover. We head to the fort made by Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq in 1321- Tughlaqabad. It’s in a state of ruin now, but it’s still easy to imagine how grand it would have been in its heyday. Built over a 6km stretch, today it’s a cluster of broken stone structures around a clump of bushes. There are maybe 6-8 other people here apart from me. Most of them couples, trying to get some quiet.

“Tughlukabad is the most uncompromisingly militaristic ruin in Delhi, perhaps in all India. Ring after ring of rough-hewn stone walls thunder their way across the open plain on the the deserted south-eastern edge of the city.” (P. 264)

What is now a deep ditch outside the fort used to be a moat. And the road that leads to the fort’s main gate used to be an artificial lake. The enemy would have to abandon their horses and wade through water just to reach the outermost gates. The walled enclosure was a little city by itself - elephant stables, markets, horsemen and the infantry, the king’s palace and a tank of molten gold. It was the stuff fairytales are made of. Two boys run across the stone-laid path I walk. I snap out of my dream-like sequence and decide to leave.

Chhotelalji’s smoking a beedi as I get into the riksha. He quickly puts it out and suggests we head to Qutub Minar. While Qutb-al-Din Aibak and his son, Iltutmish had finished the construction of the Qutub Minar after driving the Hindus out of Delhi in 1192, it was Feroz Shah Tughlaq who’d repaired the top storey of the tower after it had been damaged by lightning in 1368. In the style of its architecture, it lies in stark contrast to the unembellished and plain Tughlaq forts nearby.

Qutub Minar is full people trying to perfect that shot of holding the tower with their finger tips. We desperately need more creative photography techniques. Those who’re not taking photographs are looking at the small black gate at the bottom of the minar. It’s locked, so you can’t go all the way up. I believe there was an incident in 1974, when the public was still allowed to climb up the internal staircase to the top of the minar. The lights had gone off and the 300-400 people on the stairs rushed towards the exit. There was a stampede and close to 45 people died. Since then access has been stopped.

It’s almost 5:30 pm and it’s time to tell Chhotelalji to take me to Nigambodh Ghat. He doesn’t object to me visiting it for the purposes of tourism. The gate is has Arjuna’s golden chariot on top of it. According to mythology, this is the ghat where Lord Bharma bathed towards the end of the Mahabharat and recovered his lost memory. The pandavas are credited with establishing the ghats as a place of cremation. It’s supposed to be the biggest site for Hindus to carry out the rites of antim sanskar in Delhi. This evening, it’s not crowded. There are a few people walking out, crying. I walk past the funeral pyres to reach the banks of Junma. The area is not as vast as I had imagined it to be. The water is dirty and a few people are discussing how to arrange the next cremation and where to carry out the pooja. I feel a little guilty for being a mere onlooker while others are grieving for people I don’t know. Hesitantly, I take a photograph and leave. It’s the only place I’ve seen today that didn’t have people taking selfies. We can’t take in any more of Delhi this evening. Back to GK1.

Day 3

A sudden work assignment has lessened the time I have for sightseeing today. So I begin early. At 5 am. I first have to go to Shalimar Garden and Coronation park. Mumtaz Mahal and maybe a bit of Old Delhi can be covered in the evening.

Shalimar Garden is quite a distance from where I stay. It takes me an hour to reach there even in the wee hours of the morning. It’s a vast garden with lots of trees. People are walking and exercising. After walking along a narrow tree-lined path for about 500 mts I come to a clearing. Here, there are pigs, dogs and cows. The presence of pigs is a little disconcerting. Ahead, there’s a large well maintained garden which has people doing yoga.

“Bernier describes Shalimar as ‘handsome and noble...although not to be compared to Fontainebleau, Saint Germain or Versailles’. He is right: by both Mughal and French standards it is a large but hardly dramatic garde. There is a single Shahjehani-style pavillion, a few dry water channels and fine surrounding wall. But though simple, Shalimar is still very atmospheric: it is overgrown and forgotten, heavily haunted by djinns. It is a good place to sit and watch the sun go down.” (P.254)

Aurangzeb was crowned in Shalimar Garden. If Dalrymple is to be believed, not many Delhi-wallahs know that. It’s probably why the garden still maintains its secrecy. I’m unable to spot the central pavilion and its intricate brickwork. I don’t ask anyone either because I know my question would sound terribly odd. I enjoy looking at the tall trees, even walk through some much for the sake of a photograph that turns out to be blurred and then walk out. The village outside the garden is a misfit. The symmetrical lawns become narrow and dusty lanes with wooden carts selling aloe-vera juice. The Uber driver makes a big fuss about picking me up from here but he does eventually.

Next stop- Coronation Park. We reach the Google Maps destination and can see a vast garden inside but can’t figure out where the gate is. The driver abruptly makes a turn and drives along the enclosure, but in the opposite direction. We spot a jogger and ask him to tell us where the gate is. He directs us to the same lane we’ve come from. Then my driver stops at a police station at the turning and tells me that this is probably the only entrance. Stupidly, I agree to explore it. I enter the police station gate and walk to the backside. A hawaldar is washing clothes. He tells me this is not the entrance to the garden but I can use it. I realize I’ve stepped into muck again and can’t go on much further without ruining my shoes more. By this time, another hawaldar is standing at the entrance, wondering what I’m upto. I feel a little threatened but slip away quickly. They don’t ask me too many questions.

I urge the driver to drive along the original path and finally we see a big board that says “Coronation Park”. It has a big gate and a large parking area. How could we miss this? Joggers are doing their usual thing. I walk around with my muck-filled feet, attracting undue attention.

“The park stands on the site of the three great Delhi Durbars, the ceremonial climaxes of the entire Imperial pageant...To one side of the horizon, erupting suddenly from the marshy flatlands, there appears a vast marble image, an Indian Ozymandias. The statue is sixty feet tall, a king enthroned with orb and sceptre; around him stands a crescent of stone acolytes, as ossified court marooned in an Arthurian wasteland of swamp, mud and camel-thorn.” P. 72

It’s time to head back and do some work. I make it back in time. In the evening I set out again for Old Delhi. My first stop is Mumtaz Mahal. I speak to three auto-wallahs and request them to take me there. They say they don’t know where it is. I figure that it’s in fact inside the Red Fort. Of course, where else would she live? The queue outside, is long and sweaty. I request a young girl standing ahead, to buy me one ticket. She complies. The security guards inside sends me back to the cloakroom to deposit my tripod. I fail to understand their problem with the tripod. You may take pictures with a steady hand but not with the camera mounted on a three-legged stand? This is turning out to be tiresome. I am not interested in anything else at the Red Fort, but the Mumtaz Mahal. If someone could just point it out.

“Most infuriating of all isi the Mumtaz Mahal, the Palace of Jahanara Begum. Once the most magnificent of the zenana buildings, it was the only one to be the exclusive residence of a single woman. The privacy made it perfect for the reception of forbidden lovers - which made Roshanara Begum all the more jealous that such facilities should be given to her sister Jahanara while being refused to her. Nevertheless, with all the spies at towrk in the palace, even here secrecy was impossible. Shah Jahan soon came to hear of Jahanara’s orgies, and according to Bernier, resolved to surprise his daughter in flagrante with one of her secret paramours.” (P. 223)

I finally deposit my tripod at the entrance and make my way back in. The poor guides waste their sales pitch on me. I ask the ticket checker where Mumtaz Mahal is and he tells me it’s right behind the structure I’m looking at. Once I reach it, I realize that’s not it. I walk all around looking for it and don’t find it. It’s 4pm in the afternoon and the Delhi heat is killing me. I ask a guard inside for directions and points me back to where I came from. I finally take out Google Maps and reach Mumtaz Mahal. But now I’m so tired, I don’t want to go in.

I collect my tripod and walk out. I want to go on another hunt for Haskar Haveli but the sun is setting and I’m exhausted. This is where my City of Djinns tour ends.