Our Annivesary 

This year we decided to spend our anniversary in Delhi and not travel as we usually do. We booked ourselves into a room at the Lutyens Bungalow, at 39, Prithviraj Road. The Lutyens Bungalow was built in 1937 and the Nath’s have been renting out rooms for the past 50 years. Within walking distance from the Lutyens Bungalow are several historical sites of Delhi – Lodhi Gardens, Safdurjung Tomb, Jorbagh metro station and Khan Market. Besides that you stay across from Mr. L K Advani’s house and for me I was a couple of houses away from my bhai Ashok’s apartment. We wanted to experience the “Lutyens” life and in those two days we fully sympathize with the Lutyens squatters :). Who wouldn’t want to live next to the Lodhi Gardens? I can now understand why Meira Kumar wanted two houses and why others had to be vacated forcibly. 

Mrs. Shukla Nath is a very warm hostess and the Lutyens Bungalow has enough photographs to keep history buffs happy for half a day. Check out their website and a stay here is definitely recommended – Lutyens Bungalow.

Since we were living in the Lutyens Zone, we decided to go for our morning walk to the famed Lodhi Gardens. What a treasure house of monuments this place is ! Here are a few photographs of the different monuments inside the Lodhi Gardens –

 

Lodhi Gardens is spread over 90 acres and it contains, Mohammed Shah’s and Sikandar Lodi’s Tombs, Shisha Gumbad and Bara Gumbad. The Lodis ruled parts of northern India and parts of modern day Pakistan from 1451 to 1526. Read more about the Lodhi Gardens here – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodi_Gardens.

The most famous Lodi was Sikandar Lodi who founded Agra and shifted the capital from Delhi to Agra. The last Lodi emperor was Ibrahim Lodi who lost to Babur in the Battle of Panipat and the Mughal dynasty was established. Interestingly, Ibrahim Lodi also lost to Rana Sangha, the head of the Rajputana kingdom. Rana Sangha waged a war against Babur too but was cheated by his own emissary Silhadi and hence lost. Historians say, he would have won against Babur if Babur didn’t have the cannons. BTW – Rana Sanga apparently had over 80 wounds, was blinded in one eye by his brother, lost an arm by a sword cut and he limped because of an arrow wounded his leg – and still it is believed that he would have won the war against Babur minus the cannons. Rana Sangha became the Rana of Mewar when he was 24 and died at the age of 43… Wow.

Anyway before I get carried away with Indian history, here are some of our pics from the walk inside Lodhi Gardens –

The Lodhi Gardens is also a hotspot for doing Yoga and we caught a big group doing just that. There is a Bonsai garden as well which was not open early in the morning.

We walked to the Lodhi Gardens from the Lutyens Bungalow and while walking back we thought we should go to Khan market to have our breakfast. Google maps showed the Subramanya Bharthi road at an intersection that led to Khan market… we went to the intersection and couldn’t find Subramanya Bharthi road because it had been renamed as Rajesh Pilot Marg. Hmmm…. CONgress and its first family playing the age old game here. Rajesh Pilot may have been a good man but to replace Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathi’s name with his is UNACCEPTABLE. But who cares? Bharathi was a Madrasi (first mistake), and did a lot more for women empowerment in half an hour than Rajesh Pilot did in a couple of lives (second mistake)…. but who cares??

Then the next irritant came up when we decided to turn back and not go to Khan market. The Aurangzeb Road seems to have been renamed but the Aurangzeb Lane is very much in existence, lest our children forget the despot. Our history has been rewritten so terribly that we make heroes out of despots and the true heroes are forgotten.

Because it had been raining, a lot of snails were out for a walk as well and we caught this one –

We had a leisurely breakfast, ordered in a Rajasthani lunch from Kathputli, read a lot and worked on our annual life review …. Loved the way we spent the day. Our anniversary is on Sept 7th. 🙂