My rendezvous with the Old Fort

When I asked the autowallah to go to Old Fort he very confidently asked, “Sir, wohi na jo chidiya ghar ke pass hai.” (The one which is near the zoo)

With much pain and agony I managed to say yes. My friend who was also accompanying me giggled at my meek, reluctant and unenthusiastic reply to the autowallah.

The tragedy of Old Fort is that it is more frequented by the zoo hoppers than the heritage walkers. And adding insult to this sprawling but crumbling fort, half of its own area has been converted into a zoo.

Converting the abode of the once rulers and noblemen into animal farm is a pretty pity idea! Did our planners and heritage conservationists took the satire of George Orwell too seriously, and heaped this terrible insult to this colossus edifice.

In recent years, however, one of the most prominent zoo hoppers to have visited Old Fort is the outgoing US President George W Bush when he came to India.

Many laughed at Bush at his strange choice: old, crumbling and lichen infested fort. But little people knew that poor Bush was so enamoured by the beauty of its fauna (Read monkeys, chimpanzees, chameleons, etc of the zoo) that he ignored the majestic Red Fort and beautiful Humayun tomb for his address.

He is so fond of crumbling and dilapidated buildings that he asked his B2 bomber jets to pound all buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan with tonnes of bombs thereby, flattening them to the ground.

Finally, I reached the fort and got entry tickets and when I glanced around, my heart sank with horror. The fort entrance was swarmed by eunuchs, I just set my sight on the ground and hurriedly entered the main gate and in between kept praying for my ‘safety’. My friend was finding it difficult to keep pace with me completely oblivious of the fears in my mind.

Meanwhile, my curious friend kept asking about the thin attendance of videshi paryataks but then I did not have the answers.

When I reached the inside of the fort, I looked back and heaved a sigh of relief. The ramparts of the fort instilled in me a huge sense of security.

However, my relief was short lived as the fort had its own set of ‘issues’ within its fore walls. There was an ambience of love and lust, the proverbial love was in the air in every nook and cranny of the fort. Love birds were busy as usual in their liplocks unaware of others like me who were forced to peek at the free pornographic view.

Couples, leaped together, were scattered across the length and breadth of the lush green lawns of the fort. Finally, we also managed to get space just in front of the Shermandal, an octagonal structure made in red sand stone showing many architectural qualities of pre-Mughal era built by Sher Shah Suri. It is believed that Humayun used it as his library and on its very stairs he tumbled to his death.

However, the single dome mosque built by Humayun on the northern side of fort is an impressive structure. Built in red sand stone and white marble, its regal looks are hardly found to have waned in the past many centuries of its existence.

The mosque is a double structure building with the first floor made for the female worshipers. It has intricate marble work in the prayer area with Quranic scriptures engraved on them.

It is believed that the place where the Old Fort exists now was once the capital (Indraprastha) of Pandavas during Mahabharat period.

Many excavations have been carried out inside the fort and objects dating back to 10000 BC have been found, taking the fort’s history to ancient India.

No other structure tells the story of many layers buried deep inside the womb of Delhi than this one, each layer telling a story of a different era.

The serene environment inside the fort was so mind calming that I did not feel like leaving it. Finally I bid goodbye and emerged out of the citadel.

I was walking aimlessly out of the main gate (also known as Humayun Gate) and suddenly a hand came from my side and started caressing my body. By the time I realised, came the retort, chal la paise, kaisa sundar jawan launda (give me money o handsome man).

Seeing this, my friend almost ran away, leaving me alone to fend for myself. I kept pleading the eunuch to ‘release me from his grip’ but in vain.His hands were now pressing by the time and the dilemma was that I did not have the change. I shouted at my friend in sheer desperation to bail me out. I was lucky she had change and that made the eunuch happy.

Meanwhile, he/she kept showering us with his ‘embarrassing’ duas till we melted in the darkness.