Delhi: Itineraries

A Top Day in Delhi

Destiny has been kind and brought me back to my motherland, India, at least once a year for the past 15 years. I have spent many, many months in Delhi and each time I return here - increasingly convinced that I've unpeeled the multi-layered capital to its elusive core - a brand new layer presents itself, leaving me yet again with more questions than answers… It's largely this enigma that makes the subcontinent an eternal work-in-progress for even the most travelled traveller. And that's precisely what I love about the country. My trips to Delhi often kick off with a jet-lagged ramble through the colonnaded familiarity of Connaught Place. Here I have the opportunity to 'subcontinentalise' myself at a languid pace before plunging into the raw hullabaloo of one of my favourite areas - the old city. After fuelling up on caffeine and croissants at one of the Big Circle's iridescent little cafes, I hop into an autorickshaw and rattle my way to Shahjahanabad, the erstwhile walled city. A nose-numbing pastiche of fumes, flowers, urine and spices swiftly lets me know I've reached my destination. I begin with a visit to the mighty Jama Masjid, imagining the atmosphere when the courtyard is filled with 25,000 worshippers. From the mosque I wend my way through the people-packed bazaars of the dusty old city, which flogs everything from sweet-scented oils to jingle-jangling anklets. A few hours here leave me in a giddy daze, and although it's always a relief to flee the pandemonium of the old city, the memories I form here blaze brightest long after I've left India's shores. By now I'm famished and usually have potato-stuffed dosas (lentil-flour pancakes) dancing in my head: deciding where to satiate my craving is, thankfully, a no-brainer: Janpath's Saravana Bhavan, of course. After downing dosas, I often cut across to the adjacent Janpath (Tibetan) Market for a bit of knick-knack shopping. However, if the crush of humanity has left me ragged, I cruise over to the blissfully calm Crafts Museum to peruse the galleries and watch visiting artisans turn mud into masterpieces.

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