Springtime in Delhi

Summer is about to take over and make everything dry up in Delhi, but for the moment the city's parks are full of flowers. Zinnias, roses, marigolds, salvia, poppies, huge dahlias, and a million others kinds I don't know. The weekend before last we went to Hauz Khas ("Royal Tank"), a large park surrounded by a schmanzy neighborhood in South Delhi. This tank (water reservoir) was built around 1300 for Siri, the second city to exist within what is now New Delhi.


As in many other parts of Delhi, Moghul monuments and tombs are scattered here and there, in various states of repair. In fact, Delhi has so many that I wish they could lend a few to Bangalore -- they'd really perk things up.





The rose garden in the park was huge. And very well kept up. I suspect that there's a lot of non-city money going into keeping it like this.

After the rose garden, we headed to the Deer Park, which actually does have very obese deer behind cyclone fencing. Even better, there was a peacock. I wanted to taunt him into displaying his feathers, but I didn't know how to do that. I suppose you need a peahen.




The lake itself was a lot prettier than I thought it would be. I thought it would just be a big puddle, but there's a lot of water here. It might have been helped by the relatively large and unseasonable rains we got a few days earlier. Isn't it eerie?