Visit to Dilli Hat and Redfort

It was the 30th of Dec 2009, almost the end of the calendar year. It was quite cold in Delhi and the suburbs like Gurgaon. I had some visitors from the US, who checked into a hotel in Gurgaon. Both of them medical professionals, work in Kaiser Permanente in California. One of them was visiting India for the first time (for that matter first time to travel outside of US). Imagine me taking them to the old part of Delhi with their congested roads, traffic jams, crowded areas with people pushing and shoving others. But it had to be done, so dont whine too much.

We hired a car, as I never venture into these areas in my own car. That was the reason I never visited Redfort though I lived in Delhi for the passt 23 years. The Taxi we got was a Maruti Esteem, too small for 4 people. We had to pack the visitors and my wife in the back seat. Our first stop was at Dilli Hat, my wife's favourite shopping ground with all those nice colorful handicrafts, shawls and cloth for suits. Our journey from Gurgaon to Dilli Hat had the visitors gripping to their seats which they dont even do it in roller coaster rides!!. It scared them to death. They were only relieved on reaching Dilli Hat. As we entered the area they got carried away by the prices and the beautiful handicrafts and started buying. For them the prices are always after dividing by 50 so obviously sounds very low priced.

They were fascinated by everything at Dilli Hat so spent considerable amount of time. They even bought colorful Bangles. We were initally planning to grab something to eat before visiting Redfort but due to this shopping event we had to directly go to Redfort. The driver did not know the route well and had to direct him several times. We had to get off very far from the fort as cars are not allowed inside. We walked a little on the dirty roads. The entry fee was Rs60/- per head. The whole area was dark and really frightening. We had tough time finding the ticket counters in the dark. The show starts at 730pm for English and at 6pm for Hindi. The time was almost 730pm and had to hurry down into the fort, very interesting path.

Sound and light show at Redfort was always in my list of places/events to see and so was very excited to be actually going there. We need to sit on benches in the open air with a cloth overhang. It was very cold and I didnt go well prepared. Not many came to see so had the whole bench(es) to ourselves. the show began at exactly 730pm (first time seeing punctuality to my liking). The narration was good and clear and crisp voice, so started liking it when the lights came on in different color and sound effects of water flowing from the Yamuna River, the sound of the galloping horses of the army. But later the excitement stopped as the story progressed with bad quality sound effects, lighting. Within the first halfhour got bored so asked my visitors if they wanted to sit for some more time. They were enjoying as they were getting a lot of historical facts 9some of which even I didnt know). I managed to sit through for another 20 minutes and prepapred to leave. The visitors came along (may be got bored too).

It was most disappointing show for me, may be because I had great expectations and was comparing with the show at Golconda fort near Hyderabad and our personal show which we did way back in 1961. My brother was the narrator and we (four siblings) helped with the sound effects. It was far superior considering the fact it was done almost 50 years back with little or no gadgets. The show we had was on "Tour of United States in the eyes of a visiting Doctor - my father". We had an open air sitting (like the one at Redfort), a real big screen. During the interval we had offered delicious snacks (prepared by mom) to our invitees. The entry was only by invitation. they all loved the show what with the sound effects and music from Mozart and Tschakovski. It was scintillating.

We quickly got out before the crowd 9whatever little it was) started to leave. We made it to the main road and called the driver to come and pick us up. It was late and we had to prepare for early morning trip to Agra so hurried back. luckily the traffic was negligible after reaching Tilak bridge.