Old Delhi again and the Jama Masjid

Exploring one's city as a tourist is always exciting and one of the important places that we had not yet visited in our Delhi explorations has been the Jama Masjid. Anything in Old Delhi is bound to be a challenge because Ads hates it and cannot understand why we would bother travelling on the Metro for an hour and back to traipse around in the crowds and filth. I agree - why do we???
However, the fascination that the history and architecture of the old city hold for us is not something they can be hoped to understand. So, now that the children are away, we thought we would do them a favour by visiting Jama Masjid in their absence!

With great enthusiasm, we were up at 5.30 am, on the train at 6.15 am and at our destination Metro station by 7.15. Those who have done it will agree that walking the streets of Old Delhi is quite an unforgettable experience. Narrow streets, telephone and electricity wires sagging carelessly and dangerously, houses with mysterious dark doorways and staircases, dingy hotels and lodges, dogs and pigeons, food hawkers, men selling "cool refrigerated water", and people people people everywhere. We saw two separate guys with SLRs placing their subjects in designated positions and composing their shots. One was photographing a pair of street sweepers (the human kind, not the mechanical kind) and the other one was trying to click candid shots of a street hawker.

And the, quite suddenly, we caught our first glimpse of the dome of the Jama Masjid. Built by Shahjahan between 1650 and 1656, it was yet another crowning architectural achievement for the emperor who also built the Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Agra's Moti Masjid and many other lesser known monuments.

The main facade.

The central courtyard holds upto 25000 people for prayers and one can imagine it doing so since it is simply massive!

The Red Fort as seen from Jama Masjid.

Pigeons everywhere, having a blast with the feed which is scattered all over the courtyard.

The mosque also has some relics of the Prophet Muhammad which we were unable to look at because we went too early and most of the staff hadn't yet arrived. One can go walk up the tower to the minaret and apparently the views of Delhi from there are simply fantastic. But since S could not climb those many stairs and they don't allow women to go up there alone, we could not do it. Yup -- that's the rule :( I doubt we could have been able to see much even if we had trudged up. At 8 am, the morning sun was intense and blinding!
We were back home by 9.30 am after the mandatory fried parathas and rabri ki lassi at Paranthewali Gali. So that's another one ticked off the Delhi to-do list - happy!