More from my Delhi Anonymous set of photos …
Spice sellers at Pul Banagah
Author Archives: varunshiv
Barapullah Elevated Road and Khan Khana’s Tomb
A short note to follow up on my post about construction work for the elevated road around the Barapullah bridge, in which my concluding remarks were that the separate governmental authorities need to really work together cohesively in Delhi to accommodate both conservation and development, and use Delhi’s historic architecture as a unique facet of the city. Unfortunately, it looks like another section of the elevated road construction may indicate that examples of such collaboration are pretty hard to come by. Continue reading
Nila Gumbad in the News (too)
Since I wrote about Nila Gumbad and the dispute between the Railways and ASI in my previous blog post, I thought I’d go visit Nila Gumbad once again to see just what the situation was there, how close the railways line was to the monument etc. I’ve visited Nila Gumbad a few times before, but had always just seen it from the west – from the side of Humayun’s Tomb. Continue reading
Barapullah In The News
An image of Barapullah I took sometime in 2009, showing its basic design and construction (and the ganda nala – dirty drain – flowing under it)
Barapullah is an early 17th century bridge close to Humayun’s Tomb and Khan Khana’s Tomb in the Nizamuddin area. The monument has been in the news recently as part of the ongoing tussle between the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) in Delhi on one side, and various other governmental bodies (such as the railways, Delhi metro, MCD, Commonwealth Games people etc) on the other, playing out an intra-government-department preservation-versus-development urban slug-fest. Continue reading
Jodhpur RIFF (and Jodhpur Straight Up)!
Early in October I traveled to Jodhpur (in Rajasthan state) for a couple of days to take in the RIFF – the Rajasthan International Folk Festival, a yearly five-day long music festival that brings together Rajasthan’s storied folk musicians with musicians from around India and the world. Continue reading
Shahjahanabad I: Khari Baoli & Katra Neel
A Brief History of Shahjahanabad
Carrying on with my Dilli Darshan posts, I’m going to put up a series of them about Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi). Shahjahanabad is the 17th century Mughal walled city that also contained the Mughal palace and court, and which was the occupied part of Delhi during the time the British took increasing control of the city throughout the first half of the 19th century. Which means that Shahjahanabad was what they took increasing control of, and was the core area that Delhi grew out of in the late 19th c. and throughout the 20th c. Continue reading
Mandu
Mandu is one of those places that I’d been planning to visit for many many years, and till now for one reason or another hadn’t managed to get to. So on my way back from Bangalore in August, I thought I’d make a detour and finally get to see the site. Despite a lack of reasonably-clean budget hotels, I wasn’t disappointed. :) Continue reading
Tungnath idol procession video finally up!
When I wrote the post about my trip to the Himalayas earlier this year, I didn’t put up the video I took of a procession taking the Tungnath temple idol up from it’s winter “seat” to the temple itself, which was “opening” for the spring while I was there. I’ve finally put up the video, though it’s really grainy. Click here or on the image below to view the video, or go to the original post about my Tungnath trip. Keep the volume on your speakers up to hear the women’s wonderful singing! Continue reading
Temples in Technicolo(u)r
A while back at one of Delhi’s vanguard ethnic-chic stores, I found a novelty postcard on sale (very tongue-in-cheekily), with an image of a gaudily decorated goupram from the Sri Ranganathaswamy temple at Trichy in south India. I bought the postcard thinking the goupram must be uniquely kitschy in it’s sculpture and color palette, and was planning to post a scan of it on my blog as stand-alone kitsch. Here’s the postcard image: Continue reading
Bangalore & Somnathpur
Back in August I visited a friend in Bangalore, and while I did not have much time to explore the city, I took some on-the-fly photos of the places we drove by, through his car window. I wanted to get a sense of “contemporary” and “changing” Bangalore, i.e. the high-tech city that is supposed to be India’s answer to silicon valley. Continue reading
Sarson ke Khet 