Hauz Khas

Hauz Khas

South New Delhi has numerous newer upscale neighborhoods with blocks of quality apartments, without the walls and garden spaces of the opulent Chankyapuri villas, where a sizable upper middle class of business people and other professionals have collected.  A number of green spaces have been preserved for the recreation and restoration of this citizenry.  Relatively small and surrounded by bustling boulevards, these patches of Mother Nature barely serve their desired function, but people make the most of them.  There is a surprising number of people visiting the parks each weekend, and they seem plenty cheerful.  Many of the parks serve the double purpose of preserving the stunning vestiges of Delhi's long history.  It has been wonderful to see these so appreciated by the local citizenry.  Hauz Khas is one of the larger forested parks in New Delhi.  It is comprised of the Hauz Khas Complex, Hauz Khas Village, and Deer Park.

The Hauz Khas Complex includes an array of Mughal mosques and tombs from different centuries, as well as the foundational 13th Century water tank.  The name Hauz means water tank, and Khas means royal.  It was built by the Sultan Khalji, of the Alauddin Khalji Sultanate that ruled the area in the late 13th and into the early 14 Centuries.  The "water tank" is a reservoir, really just an extensive pond, dug to collect water for the use of the people of Siri, one of the ancient villages that forms greater Delhi.  (Delhi is knows as the Seven Cities, from the medieval period to the present.  Eight, if New Delhi is included.  Siri is one of the original cities, along with Qutab Minar, Tughlkabad, Jahanpanah, Firozobad, Purana Qila, and Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi).).  Similar water tanks have been built all over India, to serve the needs of agricultural communities.  They are often attributed to the goodwill of some local magnate of great means and great compassion for his fellow citizens.

The invader, Timur claimed Hauz Khas is so large that an arrow cannot be shot across it.  He was, perhaps, so complimentary because it had become his possession, when he defeated the local Tughluq ruler, ending the Lodi dynasty.  In the aftermath of the Delhi invasion, he camped for a time in Hauz Khas, outside the monastery complex.

Mosques and square-based tombs are scattered through the woods surrounding the water tank.  Some are found in the modern neighborhoods, surrounded by the urban sprawl that dominates today's city.  The photos below show just a sampling.  We saw at least a dozen more as we whizzed through the streets in our tuk-tuk, coming and going.  The temperature this late April day hovered between 100 and 105 degrees F.  Summer has arrived in Delhi.

After strolling for a while in Deer Park (and glancing at the poor herd of deer locked in behind fences), we happened upon the Kali Gumti, a square-based tomb from the Lodi period (mid-15th to early-16th Centuries), surrounded by the remnant of a wall that also encloses a small mosque.

Engraved stone slabs explain the basics of the sites.

Other signs have instructions about well-being and exercise.  There is a fitness course throughout the park.  The signs are still up, but most of the equipment has long since disappeared.

Many of the sites are covered with graffiti.  People seem eager to etch their names on something more eternal than themselves....and their romantic pairings.

Diane framed by the Kali Gumti arch, in the
common Islamic form.

An unnamed mosque, its structure completely gone 

now but the surrounding wall partly intact.  This doorway 

was particularly striking.  

A double pillar structure held up an expansive
roof that is no longer there.

Doorway into the light...because the roof
is no longer there.  Most of the structure
is no longer there.

These graves were once inside the mosque.  Diane is examining the wall niches, which turn out to be very similar one to the next.

Arabic language inscription on the head
of one of the tombs.

On the right is one of the wall niches, carved
in limestone.

The name translates as the Tomb within the
Garden of the World.  Gumbad means structure.

This tomb was built in 1501 of local quartzite and
imported sandstone.  The structure houses three
tombs of unknown occupants.  It is a very large
example of the square-based architecture very common
of the Hauz Khas area.  It's doorways are gated to keep
people from entering, but one of them has been vandalized
so that access is gained by a little crawling.

The doorway is blocked
by an iron gate.

High windows let in
shafts of light, as well
as pigeons.

The interior is cavernous, with lovely interplay of
light and shadow.

Stairway to roof.

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Many couples enjoy time together,
away from the prying eyes of family.
That is what we gather, anyhow.
We don't know what sort of pressures
young people feel from family obligation.
I wanted to ask, but Diane discouraged
me from doing that.

Even the immense dome receives its fair share of graffiti.

Unusual heart-shaped carving
on the
doorway capitals.

Bridge over a canal-like series of ponds

The most common rock in the Delhi area is quartzite, a
very hard metamorphic rock formed from sandstone.  The
Indo-Gangetic Plane is several thousand miles long and
several hundred miles wide.  It is filled annually by the
flooding of rivers falling from the Himalayas to the north
and the Hindu Kush to the south.  Winds move the sediments
(known as loam) and spread them across a vast area.
With much time, the compression under immense weight
of overlying layers and chemical action of percolating
waters forms a very hard rock that fractures rather than
breaking along planar surfaces, as do sandstone and shale.

  

Almost every structure and sign in the park shows
the marks of graffiti vandals.

And the water shows an arguably worse form of vandalism, that of careless, unrestricted runoff pollution.

The green color of the water is caused by blooms of algae that thrive on the nutrients entering the water system from wastes and fertilizers.  These critters live at the surface and block sunlight from reaching the bottom, where oxygen-producing plants would keep the water oxygenated.  These plants die, as well as any creatures that require oxygen.  Algae blooms are associated with "fish kills" and lifeless waters.

One the city side, polluted water enters the
Water Tank, as is needed.  The tank can only
keep its levels if water is continually replenished.
Immense evaporation from the surface would
otherwise dry up the tank in a very short time.

On the other side of the grating, the water is
especially green.

  

The inscription tells who built this particular water tank.

Sudha Murty, an Indian philanthropist and writer, explains
 their general provenance ands significance in her memories.
She also tells the stories she has heard of several water tank
(ponds) that she finds memorable.  These give a small insight
about the water tanks across India.

Sudha Murty also tells stories about what
I would call "regular" Indian people.  Much
of the popular fiction depicts only the most
outlandish characters and highly dysfunctional
relationships.  (This includes of the work of
several renowned Indian authors, as well as
foreigners.)

Hauz Khas Village is seen on the left.  Diane and I had coffee on the upper floors of nearest building.  The monastery complex is to the right.  It extends to a right angle bend in the all and along the right side.  The sun was getting pretty strong and heating up the day to uncomfortable levels, so we retreated to the shade of the cafe, saving the monastery for our next visit.

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