Located next to a pretty rectangular park by Sadhana Enclave are two ancient buildings, not uncommon occurrences if you spend any amount of time roaming around Delhi. Discovering such monuments has become a bit of an obsession for me, as I invariably spend a few days in Delhi every year before flying home.
The two structures face each other across Masjid Road. On one side stands the Baradai, an arched hall with seven distinct bays lined from north to south and three parallel bays deep inside. The Baradai probably dates to the late 14th century from the Tughlaq period and may have served as a mosque, although detailing on the western wall is lacking aside from niches that may once have contained mihrabs.
The fact that this structure is halfway down Masjid Road may be a strong clue that it was indeed once a mosque. The Baradai is completely fenced off, so access to the interior is not possible. So I had to be content with poking the camera lens through the railings to give a sense of what this building is about.
Directly on the opposite side of the road stands a tomb, believed to be of the Lodi period, and probably the resting place of a nobleman rather than anyone of direct royalty.
A small walled enclosure surrounds the tomb, with a couple of subsidiary graves in the courtyard open to the air.
Today both structures have almost been lost to the residential colonies that surround them, so it’s hard to imagine how the landscape would have looked 500 years ago. No documentary evidence exists to help us understand exactly when these structures were built, who built them, and who they were built for. As with so many monuments in Delhi, these facts will forever remain a mystery.
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Categories: Baradari and Tomb, Delhi, India
Kevin Standage 