A touristy day.

I had no idea that November 1 is officially recognised as Haryana Day. At least not until someone in office told me that Thursday was an off on account of the holiday (our office is situated in Gurgaon). So I decided I would make it a touristy day, pack myself out of the house instead of sitting and moping around, watching mindless crap on the television, or just lying in bed and reading and thinking about things and giving myself a headache. I have always wanted to go to Agrasen ki Baoli, which is situated in the heart of Delhi, in Connaught Place (or CP). Sadly, either not many people are aware of its existence or not many care to venture into archaeological monuments, which is why the place was as bare as Roberto Carlos’s head. Agrasen ki Baoli is a stepped well that was built somewhere in the 1700s. As the name suggests, it was built by a king called Agrasen. And in the Rajasthani language, “baoli” means a well or a waterwork. The building is located on Hailey Road. Walk down the Hindustan Times Building on KG Marg, cross the first signal, and the next crossing to your left is Hailey Road. Walk down, maybe 50 metres, and you will see a lane on your left. At first, it looks like any lane in Delhi, very unassuming and common. But as you walk into it, you will spot a crumbling façade on your right, protected by an old iron fence. This is Agrasen ki Baoli, there is a green board just inside the small gate proclaiming as much, along with a basic description about the monument that is protected by the Archaelogical Survey of India. You climb up a few steps and the Baoli stretches out ahead of you. To your immediate right, there is a smallish mosque (which is now decked with stacks of plastic white Neelkamal chairs), and lots of graffiti on the wall, a staple of our archaeological places. Gunjan loves Raja. Suresh rocks, among other such things. You get the drift.

As you enter the Baoli, this is what you see.

This is the little mosque at the entrance.

"Neelkamal Zindabad!"

The writing on the wall.

Then you turn towards the Baoli. As I said earlier, it’s a stepped well, all dry now, apparently one of the largest in Delhi that exists till date. Close to 50 rough-hewn steps lead to its bottom. The dome above the well is peopled by hundreds of rats, all squeaking away and fluttering around in the only dark place in the environs that offers them respite from the bright sunshine around. The floor below the dome is caked dry and black with bird and bat droppings, while the steps outside are littered with with feathers and other assorted debris that is a staple at heritage places across India – a Coke bottle, a slipper missing its partner in crime, an empty packet of chips, plastic bags, among other things. Then there are the pigeons – again, hundreds of them around. Feral aerial creatures, staring at me sideways with their red-ringed eyes, cooing away gutturally. For some strange reason, these birds give me the creeps. Maybe it’s the sound they make, and when combined with the antiquity of the ruined place, it made me shiver. An ancient, forgotten monument in the heart of Delhi, forgotten by most, a curious mixture of the past and present. Along with its timelessness, the delicate cobwebs all around its walls, the well underneath the dark dome where the bats hung out, the pigeons all around, the place had a slightly haunted feel about it.

"All domed."

Dirty, dirty.

The ancient and the modern.

A sole guard was posted outside the baoli, dressed in the blue uniform of a sentinel. More were not needed – hardly anyone visits the place. The lane outside was empty, apart from a few vehicles passing now and then, and a forlorn-looking vendor standing outside the gate, aiming to sell water and snacks to the few tourists (like me) who would care to venture in. When I walked in, there was a couple sitting on a bench inside; a group of five boys, presumably bunking college, sitting on the steps and talking animatedly; and a group of college girls who were busy clicking their photographs in the baoli in various poses, all for their Facebook timeline covers – posing on the stairs, stretching out their arms (Titanic style) in the arches, gazing into the distance, and such. To be honest, the baoli does make for stunning images. But since I was out alone, I spent my time aiming the camera at its orangish-red brick walls, the mottled pigeons, the little greenery creeping up the walls, the various design elements I could find around the building.

The graffiti on the walls outside in the lane.

Pigeons!

The steps leading down into the dry well.

"Look, there are the bats!"

"Hey there, I see you!"

I had planned to visit the Jantar Mantar as well, but just as I stepped outside the baoli, my camera batteries died. (I know I should have charged them once the previous night. And my BlackBerry camera is no good.) So I gave up on that idea, decided to return another fine day, and went for a stroll around the neighbourhood. CP is a small, bustling economy in itself. It has everything that is needed to sustain a group or population of people. As you enter from the Barakhamba Road side, the small lane just outside the Metro station (near the beautiful Statesman Building) has small stalls selling every conceivable item – eatables, packed goods, freshly made poori-aloo and south Indian cuisine, fresh fruit juice, fruits (cut and packed), vegetables, chat, chips, socks, shoes, newspapers, water. As I walk towards the residence (HT House) of my previous employers, it seems as if nothing has changed in the last few years. The lame old man selling gutkhas, mint, chewing gum among other things still sits on the pavement, his white pet dog (a mongrel) wagging its tail beside him. The thela making oily bread pakoras and aloo chaat is stationed at the same spot. The newspaper vendor also sits right where I left him. People walk around busily. It’s that office crowd, people dressed in pinstriped suits and straight pants with their shirts tucked in, men in formal shoes and women in heels, carrying folders and laptops and small leather bags, talking away into their phones, all the while managing to look singularly busy and important. There are people drinking fresh fruit juice at the stalls; the demand for hot chai (with adrak) never ceases, winter or summer. The food stalls are always, always full. Even the Mother Dairy ice cream stall has a few customers around it. I stop at Pappu’s and order a plate of steaming aloo chat (for 25 bucks a plate, that’s quite a lot of potatoes deep fried in hot oil; I ask for it to be served with extra masala and chutney). I can barely finish all the potatoes, there are quite a lot of them in a plate and it is almost unthinkable of a single person finishing them, unless one is ravenous, or a glutton. It’s not that the dish cannot be eaten – it’s just that the taste of all the potatoes and chutney gets boring after some time, I am through once I have satisfied my taste buds. Then I walk around the CP circles for a while. Magazine sellers, earrings, clothes, shoes, slippers, belts, Rajasthani jholas studded with mirror work to entice the firangs to pay exorbitant prices for them. A man playing a flute, selling the bamboo instruments that no one buys. Outside the gleaming Sony showroom that everyone walks into. McDonalds, where the strange woman stands – she is always dressed in a pair of scruffy pants and a t-shirt, with a tilak on her forehead, her feat callused and the skin on the heels broken, carrying a plastic bag in her left hand. When I ask the guard outside, he told me the lady was mentally challenged. I had thought as much, I had seen her outside and around the restaurant for as far as I can remember. And she was still there. I walked around for some more time, and left that familiar road behind. CP, to me, feels reassuring and comfortable to me, I know where everything is, I can locate any place in any circle in a jiffy. (Unless I am showing someone around when I get super nervous and anxious and botch the simplest way around, resulting in my guest having to walk around the place at least twice before we arrive at the desired location.) The atmosphere is familiar, outright capitalism is a given. You can spend as much, gorge on all you like, hold hands around with your lover, and buy electronic gadgets. You can slurp ice cream candies and visit Palika, the cavernous haven for everything pimped and smuggled and bargained for. You can simply sit on a bench and bide your time. You can shoo the pigeons away or feed them. You can bump into college acquaintances you haven’t seen in three long years and yell and scream and hug them, exchange phone numbers and promise to call them and fix up an appointment, only to forget all about it once you walk away. You can ignore the beggars around, the disfigured and forgotten remnants of our society, left behind in the mad rush. You can window shop and be made to wait for reservations outside pubs and eateries. You can savour everything that is uniquely Dilli and yet quaintly similar to modern shopping places everywhere.

Washed my dirty linen.

All images belong to the blogger.

Song of the Day: 'Dreams Don't Turn To Dust" (Owl City).