Scenes from Delhi

This will be my final talk about India. Actually I won't be talking that much: I wasn't in Delhi that long, and I was still recovering from an illness, and my sister had previously lived in Delhi. So I ended up just being led around the city, snapping pictures as I went.

First is a Hindu temple:



No pictures were allowed inside, of course I can understand. What was strange was that a lot of the attractions allowed photography but charged a drastically higher rate if you wanted to use a video-camera!

Here is an interesting astro-lab, an outdoor structure where astronomical phenomena could be measured by the angles of shadows and so-forth, like that scene where Indiana Jones sees the scale model of the city, but without the lasers. If that sounds dry, it involved a lot of M.C. Escher-esque architectures:



My favorite attraction was the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, now more than eight hundred years old and largely in ruins. Here's a few pictures:







I took this spy shot of a couple walking about the grounds (I've resolved to stop taking spy shots, but in the mean-time I like this one):



And also, there were some brightly-colored tropical birds, I've never seen them outside before! There was also a number of mynah birds to be seen.



It was kind of a bummer, but a lot of the attractions to Delhi were closed when I visited. The government had decided to close unlicensed stores, and in retaliation the entire private sector held a strike. On the other hand, the government runs a sizable percentage of Delhi's businesses,they remained open. It also kept down traffic, Delhi's traffic jams are notorious.

So I didn't get to see everywhere I wanted, but I did end up seeing the beautiful Bahá'í Lotus Temple:



And I ended off the night's explorations by going to Chandni Chowk, a large outdoor shopping area that was mostly open, despite the general strike going on in the city. There was lots of women's clothing to be found, my sister ended up buying some silver jewelries for her wedding!