Nirdesh Singh, Author at Ghumakkar - Inspiring travel experiences.

Shergarh – Sixth City of Delhi

By Nirdesh Singh

Before entering the main gate, get off at Mathura Road and enter the lake area. You can take the kids out boating. But you have more serious things to do. You walk towards the looming Talaaqi Gate. This gate like the others is also capped with chattris and protected with bastions. Walk along the ramparts on the right with the rim of the lake on your right. Once the moat probably ran around the fort but now is limited to the western flank. Just make some noise walking so that you do not startle love birds cooing in the bushes.
Shergarh is a sprawling compound bound by walls on all sides. There are three gates: The Western Gate for entering is called Bada Darwaza flanked with mighty bastions, Northern Gate is called the Talaaqi Darwaza or the Forbidden Gate and the Southern Gate is called Humayun Gate. Humayun Gate is the signature symbol of Purana Qila with the two ubiquitous pavilions on top. At the foot is an amphitheatre where the Light and Sound show about Seven Cities of Delhi is played out in the evenings.

Firozabad – Fifth City of Delhi

By Nirdesh Singh

Nothing beats the romance and magic of visiting a monument in Delhi on a wintry Sunday afternoon. The light December breeze has cleared the smog. The air seems almost crisp. Kotla Firoz Shah is an oasis in the middle of the city. It is hard to imagine that exactly 614 years ago on an equally beautiful December day this fortress was being plundered. Soak in the atmosphere sprawled on the green grass under the flitting sun. You can see Delhi’s first skyscraper Vikas Minar in the south, the IG Stadium in the east, floodlights of Firoz Shah Kotla Stadium just yards away, and for company you have crows, mynahs, eagles, dogs and even cats. Chat up the security guard for nuggets of information.

Apparently, this is the only place in Delhi supposed to be the abode of Djinns or spirits. Believers come and light up diyas and incense sticks. Some people even leave written requests. The steady stream of believers assures that wishes are being granted by the Djinns. Thursday is the day when most people come with their petitions and leave offerings. It is believed that the Djinns love Delhi so much that they cannot bear to see it deserted. The day beliefs die, city dies and you die.

The Seige & Tragedy of Lucknow’s Residency – A History Lesson

By Nirdesh Singh

As you enter the main gate of Residency, the din of Lucknow city recedes until just the distant hum of traffic remains. It is a quite green oasis in the middle of cacophany that Lucknow is today. The pervading hush makes it hard to believe that this eerily quite place was witness to one of the bloodiest fights of Indian Mutiny of 1857. This is nature’s way of soothing the Residency with eternal balm and tranquility to anesthetize the tumultous past. The dewy green grass absorbs the shock of looking at the cannon scarred red brick walls. Most of the buildings are heavily damaged with few having roofs.

Barring the green grass, it seems that the siege ended just yesterday. The shattered walls carry the echoes of tragedy, doom, valour, disease and gore. Walk the grounds and you are immediately transported to those turbulent days. Residency is a sprawling compound with neat manicured gardens. Signs indicate the names of various buildings. During the rains, the green moss covering the red brick broken walls lends an exquisite charm to the place. Spend some time in the museum. The church’s cemetry has the graves of about 2000 people including Lawrence. Visit Nawab Saadat Ali Khan’s Tomb. Stay back for the light and sound show in the evening.

The Amazing Story of Lucknow’s Bada Imambada

By Nirdesh Singh

Despite the continuous building and breaking, the Bada Imambada turned out to be magnificient. It rivalled the Moghul architecture. No iron or cement has been used in the building. The imambada boasts of one of the largest arched structure with no supporting beams. Under this vaulted chamber lies the simple grave of the Nawab.The grave of the architect also lies in the main hall. Asafuddaulah was truly generous and class blind.

The Indomitable Daulatabad Fort, Aurangabad

By Nirdesh Singh

As you enter the fort, you are greeted by this tall minar – Chand Minar. It used to be covered with Persian glazed tiles. Now they have whitewashed it in faded orange colour. You want to strangle the person who ordered this colour. The minar was built by Ahmed Shah II to celebrate the capture of the fort. To approach from the front one has to go through three bastions of fortified walls.

Lucknow Lights

By Nirdesh Singh

Two centuries ago when the Nawabs were driving around in their horse drawn buggies they would give way of right to the horse drawn buggy of the fellow Nawab, both on their way to Hazratganj for shopping. This was perfectly normal in the true spirit of Pehle Aap (after you) culture of Lucknow. After all, that was the era of leisure, languidness and laid back, aptly depicted in Satyajit Ray’s ‘Shatranj ke Khiladi’.

Times have definitely changed now. Goons – elected or otherwise – sitting in their Endeavours, with number plates emblazoned with their self-christened designations, pressure horns on full blast, bulldoze their way through the crowded streets. Of course the number plates do not carry registration numbers and the horn has to sound the loudest. Few moments caught in this decibelly deafening din will bring in the worst headache and probably convulsions. Guantanamo Bay authorities could play this cacophonic recording and the Al-Qaeda inmates would start singing like canaries instead of paying royalties to music companies for playing their metal rock.

You are startled and jump off the street when you hear a truck horn, only to see a motorcycle whizz past you. In Punjab, your vehicle needs to be shod with the flashiest alloys. In Lucknow, people get turned on by going sadistic on your ears. It is auditory mayhem on the roads.

Dancing Peacock at Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur

By Nirdesh Singh

Nahargarh Fort is perched on a hill overlooking the city of Jaipur. Best time to go there is early in the morning. It is a pleasant half hour drive from downtown city. There is a lush forest on both sides of the winding road. Drive slow to take in the greenery and sounds of the forest. People can be seen jogging and cycling. Birds chirp and peacocks give out their shrill cries when they see you approaching.

Romancing the Train – Pune to Nasik

By Nirdesh Singh

My favourite travel author Paul Theroux says in the opening paragraph of ‘The Great Railway Bazaar’ – the best travel book ever written – “I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it”. One simple sentence summarizes the entire romance and mysticism around the trains. It conjures up the sights and sounds of unknown exotic destinations. It is as if you don’t care where the train goes; you only want to be someplace that is far and not seen before. Someplace where people look different, language you can’t understand but sounds musical; and food is an adventure everytime.

Meanwhile, the train chugs along several stations. It is the perfect weather to buy chikki in Lonavala and feast on hot vada paos. The taste brings back memories from the past. It seems as if the chikki and vada tastes have been standardized like McDonalds. You remember the taste from times long gone when you took the Madgaon Express from CST to Goa every month on the Konkan Railway Line.

The Stupendous Chitradurga Fort

By Nirdesh Singh

Most of the forts you visited were predictable. But this fort has a surprise waiting at every gateway corner and beyond every wall. It is like being rewarded for your huffing and puffing at every level of this Wii game. You feel like a child bounding up every which way. There are water storage tanks with elaborate planning for rain harvesting, granaries, oil pits, natural sources of clean cold water and temples.

Bidar – Of Hasan Gangu, Mahmud Gawan and Barid Shahis

By Nirdesh Singh

The Madrasa is the best known example of Bahmani (Persian) Architecture and is one of its kinds in India. The building functioned like a residential University. It is a rectangular three storey structure that consisted of a mosque, lecture halls, professor quarters and student cubicles. The walls were covered with blue, green, golden and white glazed Persian tiles. In its heydays, the madrasa would have looked pretty spectacular with the sun glinting off the majolica work; the minars soaring into the sky reflecting the aspiration of the founder and the students. The architecture provided the perfect setting for intellectual brainstorming and discussions. The scene of harried professors and students scurrying between classes would be similar to being played out at Feroz Shah Tughlaq’s madrasa at Hauz Khas Village in Delhi – unless all inmates fled during Taimur’s plunder of Delhi.

Today, the madrasa is much in ruins. In 1656 Aurangzeb occupied the building (Bidar Sultanate was gone by 1619) and turned it into an army barrack. Aurangzeb believed in occupation and razing rather than building. Rooms in the south-east were used to store gun powder. Since Aurangzeb was not fond of smokers, somebody hid in the corner stealing a few puffs, when reportedly an explosion blew up along with the unwitting arsonist, portions of the south and east walls with the eastern entrance gate. Out of the supposedly two minars, only one 100 feet tall minar on the north east corner survives. The biggest surprise is that the two balconies of the minar project from the structure rather than being supported by brackets. The minar has vibrant colourful patchwork of zigzag motifs. Facing the central courtyard are the reading halls with open arched doorways rising to three storeys creating huge iwans, which in turn are surmounted with domes. The minar, iwans, domes and glazed tiles complete the Persian Architecture.

Knowing Delhi – Khan-i-Khanan Tomb in Nizamuddin

By Nirdesh Singh

Rahim says; Do not break the thread of love between people. If the
thread breaks, it cannot be mended; even if you mend it there will
always be a knot in it. The friendship will not be same anymore.
Now, that sure brought an instant childhood connection with Rahim and a smile to the face.
Abdul Rahim Khan was the son of Bairam Khan. History is amazing – how can a son of a Mughal general infamous for atrocities could turn out to be composer and poet.

Siri – Third City of Delhi

By Nirdesh Singh

Legend has it that Alauddin beheaded 8000 Mongols living in the settlement now called Mongolpuri and built the foundation of his City on these heads. Thus the first Muslim city of Delhi was built in 1303 and called Siri (‘Sir’ is Hindi for head) as a homage to all the severed heads. In fact, Khilji chased the Mongols and pushed them north of Kabul that ensured the Mongols would not attack India again for some time.