Vintage Vixen

The great thing about travelling light (apart from being able to carry my own luggage) is that I can shop when I'm away and it'll still fit in my bag and, with the quality of the clothes for sale in India, it's hard not to. This cotton long-line kurta came from FabIndia, an organically-certified, lifestyle brand established in 1960, with shops throughout the sub-continent. The products are sourced from villages across India where the company works closely with the artisans, some 55,000 individuals, offering an alternative to mass-production while creating sustainable livelihoods in the rural sector. You may remember our visit to Dr. Ismael Mohammed Khatri's block-printing factory when we went to Gujarat last year (HERE) where we filmed his workers producing fabric for FabIndia.

The print on my dress is known as Ajrakh, one of the most specialised and finest kind of block printing. A lengthy and detailed, highly skilled process Ajrakh involves resist printing and indigo dye and goes through thirteen individual stages to produce a depth of colour unattainable with standard surface printing. The dress has mirrored insets around the cuffs and on the attached waistcoat which is trimmed with silver bells. For any sewists out there, the dress is cut on the bias with French seams and pulls on over the head, the only fastening being the string tie.

I'm linking with Patti for Visible Monday.

Anyway, back to the travelogue. I got slightly ahead of myself posting about the Taj Mahal. We started our adventures in Delhi, staying at the All Izz Well, a hotel named after of the hit song and dance routine from the 2009 Bollywood blockbuster 3 Idiots. Our hotel was bang in the centre of the main bazaar of Paharganj, a frenetic tangle of market stalls, roadside chai wallahs, bicycle rickshaws, food carts, tuk tuks, pariah dogs and itinerant cows. Pretty or posh it wasn't, but for a true slice of Indian big city life you couldn't ask for anything more authentic.

On our first night we spotted an arrow pointing to The Best Exotic Rooftop Restaurant and, having watched the similarly named film for the umpteenth time just before we left for India, took it as a sign. We climbed the four flights of stairs to the top of the building and spent all of our Delhi evenings there. The food was delicious, the staff welcoming and the beer was ice cold - as was the outside temperature. Thank goodness we packed thick jackets, wrist warmers and scarves!

So, how about some culture?

Bega Begum (1511 - 1582) and Humayun (1508 - 1556)

Situated in Nizamuddin, the old Muslim centre of the city, and constructed some sixty years before the Taj Mahal, Humayun's Tomb is Delhi's first Mughal mausoleum and the final resting place of the second Mughal emperor, Humayun, who died in 1556. Building commenced in 1569 under the watchful eye of his grieving widow, the Empress Bega Begum, who camped here for the duration of the build and is now buried alongside her husband. The cost of the build was said to exceed over 1.5 million rupees, paid for entirely by the Empress.

Humayun's Tomb was the first garden tomb in all of India and the first monument to use red sandstone on such a large scale, built in the Persian-style with inlaid black and white marble on a platform overlooking the Yamuna River.

An English merchant, William Finch, who visited the tomb in 1611, describes the rich interior furnishing of the central chamber (in comparison to the sparse look today). He mentioned the presence of rich carpets, and a shamiana, a small tent above the cenotaph, which was covered with a pure white sheet and with copies of the Quran in front along with his sword, turban and shoes.

The Charbagh (or quartered gardens) changed repeatedly over the years following their construction. The capital moved to Agra in 1556, and the decline of the Mughal empire quickened the decay of the monument and both the features and expensive upkeep of the garden proved impossible. By the early 18th century, the once lush gardens were replaced by vegetable plots tended by people who had settled within the walled area. However, the capture of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 together with the premises, and his subsequent sentencing to exile, along with execution of his three sons, meant that the monument’s worst days lay ahead, as the British took over Delhi completely. In 1860, the Mughal design of the garden was replanted to a more English style, with circular beds replacing the four central water pools and trees planted in flowerbeds. This was corrected in early 20th century, when on the orders of the then Viceroy, Lord Curzon, the original garden were restored in a major restoration project between 1903–1909.

During Partition in 1947, Humayun's Tomb became a major refugee camp for Muslims migrating to Pakistan and was later managed by the government of India. The camp stayed open for about five years, and caused considerable damage not only to the extensive gardens, but also to the water channels and the structures. Eventually, to avoid vandalism, the cenotaphs within the mausoleum were encased in brick. In the coming years, the Archaeological Survey of India, took on responsibility for the preservation of heritage monuments in India, and gradually the building and its gardens were restored.

Southeast of Humayun's Tomb, within the grounds, stands another mausoleum with a double dome and two graves bearing Koranic inscriptions which is that of Humayun's barber, a man considered to be important because he was trusted to hold a razor to the emperor's throat.

Standing outside the boundary of the complex is the tomb known as Nila Gumbad or 'Blue Dome', so called because it is topped with brilliant blue glazed tiles. It was built by Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khana for his trusted servant who not only grew up with his son, but later also died alongside him, while fighting against the rebellion of Mughal general Mahabat Khan in 1625, during the reign of Jahangir.

After a wander around the wonderfully tranquil Sunder Nursery, a 16th Century heritage park popular with courting couples and picnickers, we made our way to the Crafts Museum where we were inundated by schoolkids demanding selfies. To escape the madness we joined the queue to eat at Cafe Loda, said by many to be one of the best places to eat in all of Delhi and trust us, it was. All the hip and beautiful people eat here from elegant women clad in silk saris and dripping in diamonds to sharp suited businessmen and women, I'm amazed they let us scruffy tourists in.

The final stop for the day was the fabulously quirky National Rail Museum where we marveled at a spectacular array of vintage steam trains and with an admission fee of just 50p, money well spent. Despite being the only foreigners there everyone was far too interested in the trains to ask for a single selfie - bliss!