Delhi Darshan - 3

Continuing my outings in Delhi, yesterday I had made up my plans to visit ISKCON temple and Lotus temple on Sunday. Google maps has indeed become very handy in locating places. In the map, both the temples were close by, so I decided to cover both in the same day. There were no direct busses to both places, according to DTC bus route finder, and the closest place nearby to both was the Nehru Place terminal, according to Google map.

Today morning, I started at around 10:30 AM, and took a bus to IIT gate. From there, I changed bus and took another one to Nehru Place (bus No. 764). From Nehru Place, I took an auto to ISKCON. By the time I reached ISKCON, it was around 11:30.

3 big Gopuras of the temple stood before me. As I entered the temple's main gate, there was Govinda's restaurant on the left side and I noted down the timings of lunch, as I had already decided to have todays lunch here.

This temple is on Hare Krsna hills, so had to climb a few steps.

I proceeded towards the main temple and I saw Garuda idol directly opposite the main diety.

I proceeded furter towards the main temple. All thru the way, chanting of 'Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare', the Hare Krsna Maha Mantra was heard aloud in different tunes. I was surprised to know that people were allowed to take snaps inside the temple, unlike many other temples where photography was not allowed.

As I entered the temple, a few people were dancing in one side. There were the idols of Sri Gaura Nitai on the left, Sri Radha Parthasarathi in the centre and Sri Sita Ram Lakshmana Hanumana on the right. At the entrance was the idol of the founder of ISKCON, A.C. Swami Prabhupada.

All the 3 dieties were so beautifully decorated that I couldn't take my eyes off them. They were so colourful and blissful. I dont have many words to explain the feeling, but it was such a great experience!

In the centre of the roof was a huge beautiful chandelier. All thru the roof on all sides, paintings of Radha-Krsna and Chaitana Prabhu were done.

I was about to go round the sanctum sanctorum of all the 3 Gods, but it was 12 PM and they had to close the Garbh Gudi. They told that it would again open at 12:30 PM. So, I came out and checked out what else could be done. I saw a building on Vedic Expo and went there. There the Prabhu told that there is one Gita Saar show which would start in 5 mins, and had to purchase ticket of Rs. 50 for it. I bought the ticket and went in. There was a huge model of Godess Lakshmi worshipping Lord Vishnu.

Behind it was the pics of GOD (Generator - Brahma, Organizer - Vishnu, Destroyer - Maheshwara)

The show started and we were taken to a dark room. This show is unlike the one which is in Bangalore's ISKCON, here we were asked to move from one room to another. In all the rooms, splendid laser shows were there describing Mahabharata and the Gita Saar. They explained about the soul prelimenary and other aspects of life. It was such a superb show, which lasted for half an hour.

I came out of the show and over there was a photo of the 10 Avatars of Lord Vishnu.

I came back to the main temple where Maha Mangalarti was being done. A huge crowd had gathered and now many people were dancing to the tune of Hare Krsna Maha Mantra. I took the Mangalarti and proceeded to go round the sanctum sanctorum, which was called the Krsna Art gallery. Over here, photos of all main dieties of ISKCON all over the world are put up. I was amazed to see the photo of Lord Krsna-Balarama, which is in Vrindavana, as this was the same pic in the calender which Vandana had given.

After seeing this, I began to feel hungry and thought of going to the Govinda's restaurant below. I went there, but was shocked to see that the Prasad was being served there at a rate of Rs. 270/-, which was a buffet meal with 56 dishes. I decided not to go there, and instead have a pizza or a burger. I went above again where there was some confectionaries sold and had a pizza. Over there I saw another board which said thali would be served in the new confectionary built, which was near the parking lot. I proceeded towards it and found it, and had the lunch over there at Rs. 75. I thought lunch would be served as Prasad on sundays, but my guessing went wrong. But the food was damn tasty - no onion, no garlic.

After having lunch, I asked for the route to Lotus temple, and the guard over there told me a short cut to reach the place. The Lotus temple was visible from the ISKCON temple campus only. It took around 20 mins to reach the place, and I had a very rare view of Lotus temple, from the backside, and it looked superb. I dont think this photo of Lotus temple is published anywhere, as many people take the snap from the front.

I reached the Lotus temple grounds, or the Bahai grounds at around 2:15 PM in the scrotching sun. From here, I could see the Gopura of ISKCON temple too.

The crowd was heavy in the Lotus temple and a huge garden was present over there. I proceeded towards the temple where they asked me to remove shoes. The ground was so hot that I had to hop around!

At the entrance to the temple on the side, there was a little queue. The temple's people came and gave a brief introduction of the temple and Bahai faith. The Bahai Houses of Worship is open to all regardless of religion or any other distinction. Here, people of all religions may worship God without denominational restrictions. This is a pure white marble and is also known as the Taj of modern India. We were asked to go inside the hall and pray, and no photos to be taken inside. Insite were a row of seats placed in a semicircular fashion and nothing else. I entered, and sat for a while and exited. From the top, the garden looked very splendid.

I came out of the temple campus and proceeded towards Nehru Place, when I remembered that someone had told me about Kalika temple nearby. I just checked it out and it was very close. I walked down to enter it, but on seeing the rush I decided not to go further. As I opened my camera for a group of small children surrounded me and asked me to take their photos and of their families. I had seen this kind in films and TVs, and for the first time I experienced it. I told them that I wasn't a journalist and took a few snaps of theirs and their beedi smoking granny.

They were so pleased with me that they offered me tea, and I must say, the chai was so good!

After this thrilling experience, I set out to return to my guest house, and walked down to Nehru Place. Immediately I got the same bus and got down at IIT Gate and took another bus to Hauz Khas. I finally reached the guest house at around 5:30 PM.

Today again, I had a wonderful time touring Delhi's landmarks. Finally, an eventful weekend ended with this.

Looking forward for plenty more..

Delhi Darshan - 2

After the start of trips on friday, today, i.e on saturday the 11th of April, I was all set to continue exploring Delhi. I had decided to go to Qutub Minar already, alone. I started at around 11 AM from the guest house, took a bus towards Mehrauli and got down the the Qutub. It was hardly 5 kms from our guest house. A tall monument stood before me with all its elegance. I was just wonderstruck by the view of the Qutub. I purchased the tickets and entered the place. Here are a few pics of the Minar..

There are 4 floors, tapering towards the sky. Some inscriptions in Urdu were written on all the floors.

Besides the Qutub is the tomb of Imam Zamim. Itseems this guy came from Turkestan to Delhi in the reign of Sikandar Lodi and built this mausoleum in his lifetime and died. It is surmounted by a dome of sandstone covered with plaster and rising from an octogonal drum. Its sides are carved with perforated screens, characteristic of the Lodi period.

Also on the left side of Qutub is the Alai Darwaza, described as one of the most treasured gems of Islamic architecture, built by Allaudin Khalji.

Next to the Alai Darwaza, there are some broken remains of some Madrasas.

Walking along, there was the tomb of Iltumush.

Close by, there is the world famous Iron pillar, but nobody was allowed to touch it.

At some distance, was the Alai Minar, which was supposed to be double the size of Qutub, but due to the death of Allaudin Khalji, the tower could not be completed.

A pic of both the towers..

At around 12:45 PM, I completed the Qutub tour and was hungry. I checked out some hotels nearby, but couldn't find one. So, I decided to have food somewhere in Green Park and get back to the guest house and sleep for a while as it was very sunny.

Again, I had a good tour of the Qutub. Waiting for the next explorations...

For more info on the Qutub, click here and here.

Delhi Darshan - 1

Weekends in Delhi have begun. And with it, also comes my Delhi Darshan trip blogs. Friday the 10th April, being a holiday for Good Friday, and a long weekend, set the stage to the Delhi trips.

Myself and Deepti started from the guest house at around 10 AM for Birla Mandir. The previous day in office, I had looked around the Birla Mandir place for the nearest bus stop, and some site showed that the closest place was Connought Place, or CP. We got into bus No. 520 (here, over internet sites, only bus numbers are mentioned for searching and searching between start and destination is not available!) heading towards CP. The first feeling in Delhi bus I got into was not good. The conductor & driver were dressed very casually, in jeans and t-shirts! Bangalore BMTC folks are 100 times better. Also, the ticket he gave me didn't have any info. It was only 7 written all over in a hopeless thin brown colored paper. BMTC is definetly better than DTC! Anyways..

On the way to CP, I saw AIIMS, India Gate, Rashtrapati Bhavan, Central Secretariat, Rail Bhavan, Jantar Mantar and residences of many famous politicians. We reached CP at around 10:45 and from there took an auto to Birla Mandir. Here, as I heard, its better to pay the auto guys how much ever they ask with little bargaining, else if we go by the conventional meter, it would cost us double the fare he mentioned, as he would be taking us for a ride! We agreed to pay Rs. 30 from cP to Birla Mandir. We reached the Mandir at around 11, deposited camera and mobiles and went in. Photography was not allowed inside the temple :(

Birla Mandir, or Laksmi Narayan Mandir is fully constructed with marble. Only 3 prominent colours could be seen everywhere - marron, white and light yellow. In the main temple, there are 3 Gods residing. In the centre is the beautifully decorated Laksmi-Narayan, towards its left is Godess Durga and towards its right is Lord Shiva. All the 3 dieties were decorated very nicely. Outside the main temple, in 2 corners facing the Lords were the dieties of Ganesha and Hanuman. We circled round the temple and next went to Gita Mandir which is next to the main temple. Here, the main verses of the Bhagavat Gita and its explanations with pictures are written on all the 4 sides of the hall. On entering directly is the marble idol of Sri Krishna which is very cute. Besides the Gita Mandir, there was a mirror room, where a small Krishna idol stood in the centre with mirrors on all sides. It was just marvelous.

We came out of the Gita Mandir and saw the Dharmasala, and then decided to go to the park which was behind the temple. This was park was so green and was nice place to rest. There were the Sai Mandir and a small Shiva temple. In some distance was a model of Ganga pouring water, which came directly to Godess Lakshmi on the other end, along a water deck. But, there was no water anywhere. Along the path were carved some of the eminent faces of Mahabharatha, like Yudhistir, Bhisma, Arjun, etc. We roamed around the place for sometime, and found it truely amazing. This is one of the best temples I've ever visited. We came out of the park and were deciding where to go next. We crossed the road thru the subway and got to the other side of the road, as we had to pick an auto from the opposite side. It was just amazing to see again the view of the temple from the opposite side..

For more info on Birla Mandir, click here.

Next, we decided to go to Jantar Mantar, as we had seen it enroute to CP, and caught an auto. The entry ticket was Rs. 15 per head, and good - photography was allowed. There were some structures all in red, actually making no sense to us regarding how to calculate time. It was built by Maharaja Jai Singh, who at that time didn't have a watch and used precission techniques to calculate time. Also, as it was nearing lunch time, we didn't try to explore how this works. Anyways, without permission, we went to the top of the high-rise ramp, and the view from there was just superb. Here are a few snaps..

For more info on Jantar Mantar, click here, and here.

We left Jantar Mantar at around 1 PM locating a hotel nearby. All the hotels in that area seemed to be very expensive, and Deepti told that there was a McD nearby CP. We went in search of it, thouroughly exhausted. We had to encircle a portion of Palika Bazaar, and finally found the McD store. We had burgers and french fries, halted there for sometime and again were thinking where to go next. We could see a metro station opposite McD and thought that we would try this mode of transport also. The metro station was at Rajiv Chowk, and from the map, we could find that Central Secratariat was only 2 stops ahead on the Yellow Line. We decided to go there, and bought tickets. In metro, tokens work, just had to swipe the token while entering and drop the token at exit for opening of gates. This was cool, unlike London Underground where paper tickets were used. The Delhi Metro is modelled similar to London's Jubilee line, and I couldn't find much of a difference between both metros. The station was clean, well maintained and security and traffic guys were also strict. I just took a snap of the metro line, and suddenly a security guy came and asked me to delete the pic I took. Hmm.. security issues :(

It was a 5 min ride to Central Secretariat and we got off there. Walking a little distance, we could see the Parliament House. Its just fascinating to see it from outside, where inside all rubbish things happen which can be seen on TV.

Besides the Parliament House was the Central Secretariat's office. I walked to the middle of the road and as could be seen during Republic Day, I took a snap. Its just cool.

Straight was the Rashtrapati Bhavan and on the sides were the North and South blocks. We headed towards the Rashtrapati Bhavan, under the scrotching sun. We could go upto the gate and saw the place. Straight from the Bhavan was India Gate. This sight is so impressive, the Prez must be having a good time ;) Sir Edwin Lutyens has desinged Delhi superbly.

Next, we went to India Gate taking an auto. This structure is the face of India. Truely gigantic and amazing. I got a feeling of how proud is it to be an Indian looking at this. This place was often telecast on Republic Day on TV, and now I was here! The cap over the upside down gun and the words 'Amar Jawan' is good. On the walls of India Gate, many names of soldiers who died in different wars are carved. We had a look of India Gate from all the sides, and were truely mesmerized.

For more info on India Gate, click here.

From India Gate, we enquired where could we go next from the police. They told that Old Fort, or Lal Quila, or the Red Fort was just nearby within 2 kms. We decided to go there in an auto, but the auto guy charged more. So, we thought of going by bus and took bus No. 502 to Red Fort. In course of the journey, I could see the National Stadium, where Chak De India was shot and Raj Ghat's bus stop. By the journey, I could make out that it wasn't 2 kms in any way, and in many places where I'd previously asked for distances, all would tell very less distance, but in actual it was double than they had told!

The bus driver didn't stop at the Red Fort stop for unknown reasons, so we got down at the next stop. From there, walking for a little distance, we could see the post office bearing the PIN code 110006. Delhi 6 :)

From there, we took a man-driven open rickshaw to Red Fort. We reached Red Fort at around 4:15 PM. The crowd was good, and the view of the Red Fort was awesome. We took tickets and entered. For some distance there were a line of shops. Then we saw the building of Diwan-I-Aam. Diwan-I-Aam, or the Hall of Public Audience was used by the Mughal Emperors for holding Durbars and other state functions. In the centre was the throne.

Walking further, behind the Diwan-I-Aam, were the buildings of Diwan-I-Khas, Khas Mahal and Rang Mahal. Diwan-I-Khas or the Hall of Private Audience was used by the Emperors for giving private audience and state guests. It seems the celebrated Peacock Throne stood in this hall.

For Rang Mahal and Khas Mahal, here goes the description and photos..

We then entered a museum where all old daggers, clothes, vessels etc used by Mughals were displayed. Barely 10 mins after entering, the bell rung as it was 5 PM and the guards asked us to vacate the place. We just had a glimpse of everything, and moved out. We then started to exit the Ref Fort, and we saw the place where the Prime Minister unfolds the National Flag on Independence Day.

For more info on Red Fort, click here.

We then returned to the bus stop and fortunately got a direct bus from Red Fort to Hauz Khas. It took around 45 mins to Hauz Khas and finally arrived at the guest house at around 6:30 PM.

An hour later, we started for Indira Gandhi Intl Airport, as we had to pick up Deepti's sis-in-law in an auto. We reached IGI Airport, but didn't enter it. We just stood at ouside and waited for her sis-in-law. Finally she came at around 9:30, and we took a prepaid taxi to the guest house. We reached the GH at around 10:30, had dinner and crashed on bed.

Overall, it was a super day for me. Started the Delhi sight seeing! Delhi truely rocks..!

More on way... Stay tuned....

And ahoy! This is my 50th post :-)

Delhi calling...

After a 3.5 months hiatus on bench, I have finally got a project! And that too, an onsite opportunity! Where else other than the Indian capital - Delhi! Well, lots of untold stories on how I got this project, but I needed any project badly, thanks to the recession and the news about firing going around the campus. Well, with this here I am..

5th April. A first look at Delhi.. As usual, I was welcomed with a huge jam outside the Indira Gandhi Intl airport. The person at the prepaid booking counter, the cab driver, and few people whom I met at airport, - all were rude. Is this the way Delhiites are? The taxi driver was driving the Maruti van like the way I drive my bike! And dont ask fellow drivers! Autos are painted yellow and green! What a color combination that is! They claim they have the largest population of CNG vehicles, but the looks of Delhi city busses is horrible. BMTC in all ways rocks. My expectations sunk.

All thru the way to Infy Guest house, construction projects of Delhi Metro were going on. Hence, the roads were humpy dumpy, needless to say.

I arrived at the Guest House at 9:15 PM. Its behind Green Park Market, near Huaz Khas, Delhi 16. Here, already 2 girls from our project - Deepti & Geeta were staying from past 1 month. Manoj, the caretaker of the GH was ready with dinner and served us. It was the first time I had an authentic North Indian meal - Dal, Paneer masala, Basmati rice, Chapati & Curds. It tasted so delicious! I just remembered the North Indian meals served at Infy food courts and else where outside in Bangalore, its was just pathetic! It was only North Indian meals on board, but on taste - hopeless..! Nevertheless, I fell in love with the Delhi food. Hope my belt doesn't get tight ;)

6th April. The first day to office. As I approached the dining table, I was amazed and puzzled to see the person sitting on it. I checked to see if I had entered a wrong room or something, but no! I was in the correct room and the person who sat was DC head of Bangalore. With no option left out, I sat in front of her and had Upma and chutney observing table etiquettes. I hate this!

The cab had been waiting down at 7:30 AM and we boarded it. Its a 45 min journey to Gurgaon, our client office location. On the way, I saw my one time dream college IIT Delhi, and Qutub Minar. This cab driver also drove so rashly, it took my spines off! Guess, this is the tradition. Entering Gurgaon, a huge chunk of cars were piled up over signal, it it reminded me of Hosur road. I thought this road was the granddad of Hosur road!

Office was cool, met client side managers and few people. I didn't have a system to work on, and so for most of the time was loafing around the DLF area. Huge buildings stood all over, and it really made me wonder if this was India! DLF has vast premises here, no wonder they are sponsoring IPL! The girls are just smokin hot than the sun. Someone had said that the NI girls are bombs, I would rate them as explosives! ;)

Well, food was served at our client office as complimentary and it was just yummy. I am now all praises for the NI food!

The cab was ready at 5:30 PM and it took us approx 1:15 mins back to the Guest House. The traffic was no better than Bangalore's Majestic. In the eveneing, myself and Deepti checked out the Green Park Market area near the GH and had some chats and were back to GH. Around 9 PM, had my dinner, went out for a walk and called up Bangalore home and slept by 11.

Hmm... here goes my first impression. Hoping to have a great time here and visiting all the landmarks and nearby cities on weekends. The stories of the sun and health scares me, but as I said, there are other hot stuffs... ;)