Humayun’s Tomb is Delhi’s Tower ofLondon: unless you are a foreigner or are host to frequent house guests youwould rarely go there. In London I was neither and went to the Tower once, whenmy wife’s chachha and chachhi visited. But here I fit bothcategories and at least every other month negotiate the traffic on the Sabz Burjroundabout.
The routine is fixed. First comes the happy thought that changes leave tracesand create pleasing anomalies: the Sabz Burj is still so called despite thereplacement, years ago now, of its faded greenish tiles with brilliant new blueones. How will future generations account for the name? Probably by inventing amyth: that it was once the site of a vegetable market, perhaps.
Then there is the approach to the monument itself, through a sequence of avenuesand formal vistas. It’s all very grand and heightens the suspense. But thistoo is an anomaly: the western gate that you eventually reach was originallyonly the side door into the complex. The main gate, as in all Mughal tombs, wasthe much larger one on the southern side of the garden which has long beenclosed. So when you pass through the present entrance and confront the majesticdome you are looking at the tomb sideways-on, in profile. It is useless toobject that all the sides are the same. The southern side—the front—lacksthe great arched recess that is common to the other three; here, below the arch,is a flat wall which encloses the entrance hall.
Crossing this hall and entering the central chamber, visitors tend to remarkthat by comparison with the colourful stonework outside, the interior is plain.‘Solemn’, I correct them, and point out that the sarcophagus was doubtlessonce covered with a rich velvet drape. Conventionally, the western side shouldbe solid, to accommodate the mihrab; but the architect left it open andsuperimposed the outline of a mihrab over the jaali—an ingenious and uniquedevice.
Outside, the gardens and waterworks have been restored to splendour throughgenerous funding from the Aga Khan. I still regret the loss of the wild unevenground on the eastern side, though I am conscious that this preference for thepicturesque is anachronistic.
The story that the monument was built by Humayun’s grieving widow seems to mea pious fiction, put about by the Mughal chroniclers. Only Akbar himself couldhave afforded so grand a gesture; and his motive was less to honour his fatherthan to proclaim the dynasty’s durability. His eye was on the future and notthe past. So it seems appropriate that many later Mughal princes and princesseslie buried around Humayun, and that three centuries after it was built, BahadurShah Zafar sought refuge here at the final moment of the dynasty’s demise.
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This article originally appeared in Outlook Delhi City Limits, May 15 2006
