“Intruders shall be gunned down”
In true Sheldonian fashion, I managed to stay away from outdoor activities during most of the winter here in Delhi. Last Sunday however, in a classic battle of nouns, boredom overcame lethargy and I decided to head out with a camera. My partner in crime was an equally bored friend who shares my love for adventure, and together we decided to take a long walk in the Ridge.
For those unfamiliar with the history of the Ridge, it is an extension of the Aravalli range, some 1500 million years old. Its isolation makes it the perfect place to find some peace and quiet, and in some cases, half-buried dead bodies. I was ready with my DSLR should an opportunity for the latter present itself. Walking along Mother Teresa Crescent, we took a detour towards Delhi Earth Station, and came across this:
Malcha Mahal is a dilapidated hunting lodge built more than six centuries ago. Owned by the royal family of Awadh, it is protected far more fiercely than the rules of English grammar on their signboards the usual neighbourhood-royal-hunting-lodge. A friend told me there are about ten hound dogs, and an old man in his seventies with a functional weapon to scare away trespassers (I didn’t dare ask him how he knew all this). A web search later that evening threw up a great post by Sam Miller, which talks about the history and current state of affairs at Malcha Mahal.
The signboard did its trick, we decided against taking our chances with hound dogs. On our way back we had an unexpected farewell party thrown by our simian friends in the neighbourhood. This photograph was shot after we crossed the stretch shown, miraculously unharmed.
The rest of our walk was less eventful; we crossed a couple of parks where, let’s just say, you don’t take a bunch of kids for school picnic. The evening ended with a great Iran kieve-chicken snack at the Buddha Jayanti park restaurant, the last surprise for the day. All photographs here were taken by yours truly, and heavily manipulated in the post-processing stage to make up for the bad photography weather.
