Jama Masjid, Old Delhi

To continue my chronicles of the Delhi visit....Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in the country.

This is pic courtesy Google, as my pics looked saaad next to this :)

Jama Masjid, derived from 'Jummah' (friday) the traditional day of prayer observed by muslims,  was built by Shahjahan, over 400 years ago. It's when you put all those monumental constructions, Red fort, Jama Masjid and Tajmahal together that you realize the kind of work created by Shah Jahan. It's pretty awesome stuff.

Swaroop and I were talking of how each time we see the Taj, it invariably creates those goose bump moments. And it's like that proverbial good book, you want to keep going back for that one more read (look). God, there's so much to see and do and read and feel....:)

Anyways, back to present....old old present....It was Shahjahan who shifted the capital from Agra to Delhi and built the walled city of Shahjahanabad. It remained capital for all the Mughal emperors after him, and evolved to the Delhi we now know.

The Jama Masjid is massive...  can accommodate a mind blowing 25,000 people at one time. There's an austere kind of grandeur to the place (rhyming and all not intended). No intricate work like we see in other monuments of the time, but just the fact that it was built on a raised platform (like two storeys high) gives it a whole different feel. A view from on top of the minarets would have been worth the climb as it overlooks a lot of old Delhi and especially so the Redfort, but we sadly didn't have that kind of time.

Some (my) pics:

The prayer courtyard

A small prayer or some lecture kind of thing that was on inside. I'm now thinking it would have been interesting to go listen for a bit.

The view of the market from one of the gates. Backdrop is the imposing Redfort.

These two pics are courtesy Google

What a pretty shot... during the month of Ramzan......and there's always tons of pigeons around

And from here we headed to the famed Karim's....