To the immediate south and east of the Lotus Mahal enclosure and elephant stables are a scattering of interesting smaller structures. These lie on a road that started from the front of Hazara Rama Temple at the center of the Royal Center and led out of the center via a gateway to the east. Continue reading
This series of posts should more rightly have been titled something like “Vijaynagar Vagabonding”, but “Hampi Hopping” has a certain ring to it, so I’m sticking with it! Continue reading
Gwalior Fort is one of the many sites in India that has a wonderfully layered history, which is manifest in architecture from various different periods from that history. Continue reading
I’m ending this Temple Run set not with photos of a temple but of a palace. This Nayaka palace dates back to the mid-17th c, and if the current architectural elements are close to the original, the contrast between this palace and Nayaka temples is quite profound. In particular, the amount of Islamic and even European influence on the palace’s architecture is immense, but the temples don’t exhibit any such influence, and when they do, the influence is very subdued (for example the vaulted roofs of the Nataraj temple in Chidambaram). In any case, these are beautiful palace buildings with a completely hybridized architectural style. Continue reading
Thirumalai Nayakar Palace, Madurai, Tamil Nadu
The present urban fabric of many cities and towns in India have their roots in the late 19th c and early 20th c, especially the “old town”/”old city” parts of town. Individual structures in these places may be older, but as functional urban entities, this is usually how old the urban landscape is. I’ve become really interested in these parts of town, and while visiting Ajmer recently sought it’s “downtown” out. Pushkar as a whole seems to be from that era. Continue reading
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
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
Mehrauli is a large urban village that grew around the shrine of the 13th c. Sufi saint Bakhtiyar Kaki, much like Nizamuddin grew around the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya (also 13th c. though a little later than Bakhtiyar Kaki). Kaki’s shrine was just outside the walls of Lal Kot, the fortified city within which the Qutb Minar is situated, and Mehrauli has grown right up to the edge of the now ruined fortifications. Continue reading
In the post previous to this one I had said that I’m not doing my Dilli Darshaning chronologically any more because most of the sites I’m visiting from this point on are very layered, in that they contain structures from various historical periods and architectural styles. So of course, the very next post (i.e. this one) has to be about sites with buildings from a very specific time in history and very specific architectural style, and which are much older than Purana Qila and Dilli Sher Shahi from the previous post! What to do? Nonetheless, here goes. :) Continue reading
Sarson ke Khet 