Qutb Minar
I headed out with a friend to check out some of the old places in Delhi. We first went to the Qutb Minar, since it was the first on the way. This is a 73 m tall ‘victory tower’ started during the reign of Qutb-ud-din, and completed by his successor (and son-in-law), Iltutmish. I was much more impressed that I expected – the grounds have a nice Mughal garden, and the ruins of the first mosque in India and the main mosque in the city (Quwwat-al-Islam Masjid) , a madrasa built by Ala-ud-din, and tombs of Iltutmish, Ala-ud-din and others. Interestingly, there were some foundation stones with Ganesh and other Hindu symbols. I thought these were added later, but in reading about it, these pre-date the mosque.
Another interesting thing was the iron pillar in the middle of the mosque courtyard. This was originally built in memory of the Gupta king Chandragupta II in the 4th century. It is 98% pure iron, which would have been unimaginably difficult to attain with the technology available then, and it has not rusted till this day, more than one and a half millenia later.
From the Qutb Minar, we went to the Baha’i Lotus Temple. We had to remove our shoes to go inside – and the ground was blistering hot. They had put jute bags on the ground for people to walk on, and were pouring water on it every few minutes. Then we had lunch at Sarnavas Bhavan on Janpath at Connought Place. My friend ordered some south indian dishes (that’s where he is from). One was 14 idlis – 14 little idlis in sambar. I forgot the name of the second one, but both were very tasty. We finished with south indian coffee.
