A WALK THROUGH LODHI GARDENS DELHI

Lodi Garden can be accessed from gate no 1,3 and 4, gate no 1 being on the main road and 4 being from the Khan market side. The Garden is located between Khan Market and Safdarjung Tomb, covering an area of 90 acres. The park is dotted with heritage monuments and tombs. It is a great place to cool your heels in the summers and warm your bones in the winters.

Designed in 1936, by the British and named as Lady Willingdon Park, after the wife of the then British Viceroy, it was redesigned in 1968, by Joseph Allen Stein, an American Architect based in New Delhi and was renamed as Lodi Garden. The garden is now an ASI protected site.

One bright sunny winter afternoon, we sojourned to this beautiful park garden.

Entering through gate no 4, we arrived at Athpula, the bridge that welcomes one to the park. Ath-pula, the 8 pier bridge was the gateway to the park. The piers support 7 arches with the central arch being the largest and the other decreasing in span from the centre. The water surrounding the bridge is an artificial water body.

The Athpula spans nearly 40 metre and is topped with a stone parapet. While walking on the bridge, one can see the lake on the right hand side, with a fountain and ducks swimming across it joyfully- the sight is one to behold in a busting city like Delhi.

From Athpula, walking on the paved walkway, we came across the Rose Garden, with a walled gateway and mosque. This is a small complex made of a tri arched entrance gateway and a small mosque within a sprawling walled Rose Garden. We climbed up the gateway from the strairs at the back a clicked a few pictures from the top.

Coming back to the walkway, we reach the central area of the park, where we could see the Bada Gumbad and Sheesh Gumbad but we stop on the walkway, to look at the turret first.

The turret is near gate no 3 of the garden and is said to be the oldest structure in the garden. It is 6 feet high and circular in plan with an external diameter of 4 metre and 50 cm thick walls.

There is no staircase and we could see the lower level comprising of a small room. A jharokha, (an overhanging enclosed balcony) and 2 arched openings in the upper level is visible from the outside. The turret is crowned with a dome built in rubble masonry. The purpose of the turret is not clear and one wonders about the purpose of the building.

Then we moved towards the Gumbad duo of Bada and Sheesh.

When we see the Bada Gumbad from outside, the structure appears to have 2 stories, but on entering the gumbad, we see that it is a single chamber with a magnificent high ceiling. There is a mosque to the west and a pavilion on the east. This group of buildings is raised on a high platform in the middle of which is an elevated area that might have been a grave.

The Sheesh Gumbad faces the Bada Gumbad, and literally means the “Glass dome”. It was once completely covered with coloured, glazed ties of which we could see the remnants, and could well visualise its elegance, royalty and glitter in its hey days!

The plan of the gumbad is square, and inside we could see, beautiful carvings in plaster between the arched niches and patterned design on the parapet wall below the dome. The ceiling inside the dome was decorated with incised plaster work, with floral pattens and Quranic inscriptions. We could see several graves inside the tomb chambers.

We came back to the pathway and walked towards the Herbal Garden. Floral beds also decorated the fringes of the Gumbad area and we crossed over them and entered the herbal garden.

The herbal garden was dotted with many varieties of herbs and we wandered around the place breathing in fresh aromas of that some of the herbs emanated.

We came out of the herbal garden and walked forward to find a path lined with many bamboo groves some of which were dry and some lush. A small crossover bridge also attracted our attention. From there we could see a small red mosque. We visited the mosque and clicked a few pictures and then walked back to the pathway to head towards the Tomb of Mohammad Shah Sayyed.

The tomb of Mohammad Shah Sayyad is beautiful structure made of Delhi quartzite stone standing on a high platform. There is a central octagonal chamber, surrounded by an arched veranda and in this chamber, lie the cenotaphs of Mohammad Shah, his several family members and close relatives.

Each side of the inner chamber has a doorway, which originally had perforated screens.

The garden outside the tomb is impeccably manicured and lined with palm trees. On taking the walkway, one can walk past the Butterfly Park towards the Glass House( Created by JA Stien).

From here, we again took the walk way and reached Sikander Lodi’s tomb on the north western corner of Lodi Garden.

The plan of this tomb is also octagonal and the inner chamber is surrounded by a lovely verandah of arches and bracketed with carved sandstone. After soaking the beauty of its surroundings we came down and rested near the lakeside.

The duck area near the lakeside was a joy to watch with ducks and ducklings of various sizes quacking about. We clicked many a picture of the surroundings and watched the Athpula from this vantage point again from where we could see the arches properly.