Week ending 9 September 2018

Monday was Krishna Janmashtami, birthday of the Hindu god Krishna and a national holiday. In the evening we attended a Kathak and BrijRass style dance and music performance at the India International Centre.  We especially  enjoyed the five person live band composed of  sitar, hand organs, flute, drums, percussion and amazing vocals.  

Krishna is portrayed on the left and his consort Radha on the right.

Shopping in Janpath we found this colorful street entertainer.  

On Wednesday we visited the Baha'i House of Worship, aka Lotus Temple.  The resident architect had been taught by missionaries years before and immediately spotted us.  We had a long and interesting conversation.  

We celebrated Grant's birthday with a guided tour of the Qutb Minar complex in Mehrauli, only about 20 minutes southwest from our place. The complex contains building from around 1150 up to the British Era.  The complex is dominated by the Qutb Minar, the tallest minaret in the world made of bricks.  (Actually its not a minaret at all but a victory tower).  It is 73 meters tall and was started in 1193 to celebrate Qutb-ud-din Aibak’s (the first sultan of Delhi) defeat of Delhi’s last Hindu  king.   

This photo gives you a sense of the size of the structure.  

Here we are with our tour buddies Catarina and Frances.  The complex was built on the ruins of Lol Kat which consisted of 27 Hindu and Jain temples.  You can see the pier and beam architecture of the an earlier Hindu temple and behind it a later Muslim dome

Here is the Qutb Minar from another angle.  Down to the left is  the Alai Darwaza, the main gateway from the southern side of the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, built by the second Kahlji Sultan of Delhi, Ala-udl-din-Khalji in 1311.   The Alai Darwaza is the earliest example of the first true arches and domes used in India. The smaller onion domed building in front is the tomb of Ala-ud-din Khalji who ruled from 1296 to 1316.

This mosque, The Quwwat-ull-Islam (Might of Islam), was started in 1193 by Qutb-ud-din Aibak and is the first mosque built in Delhi after the Islamic conquest of India.  Clearly an expansion/remodel of an earlier temple, some of  the sensuous human forms typical of Hindu art and strictly forbidden in Islamic art remain (see the figure on the pillar in the upper right).

This iron pillar dates from the fifth century A.D. and was brought here in the tenth.

Hindu temple doorway.

Islamic archway decorated with Koranic script.

We made our way to the adjacent Mehrauli Archaeological Park where we visited the Jamali Kamali Mosque and Tomb.  Jamali was a nick name for the famous Sufi saint and poet Shaikh Fazlu'llah , aka Shaikh Jamali Kamboh or Jalal Kahn The tomb was constructed in 1528-19 and he died in 1935.  No one knows who Kamali was but he is buried there next to Jamali.  

The tomb has been beautifully restored.  This ceiling is made of tile and plaster.  

This is my core Valiant class:  Ishika, Vivik, Jaden and Aman.  We are reading about King Rehoboam  and his bad friends and bad choices.  These guys are pretty fluent in  English and the older ones translate from English to Hindi for the younger ones if they don't understand and from Hindi to English if I don't understand.  I love these kids!