Last week I was out with fellow Photographers, Bloggers and Foodies to explore some of the popular eating places in Old Delhi (Chandni Chowk). During this walk we went to different places around Chandni Chowk & towards the end we also thought of going inside Fatehpuri Masjid. Chandni Chowk is just across the Red Fort. The road going from Red Fort ends at Masjid Fatehpuri.
This is such a peaceful place in the middle of lot of hustle bustle of Chandni Chowk. There is a huge campus surrounded by four walls and entry gates from 3 sides.
There is a very interesting history behind this mosque of old Delhi. This mosque was built in 1650 by wife of Shah Jahan, her name was Fatehpuri Begum. She belonged to Fatehpur Sikri (a place around Agra). After 1857, Britishers auctioned this mosque to a Hindu businessman Lala Chunnamal. He had bought the mosque for 19 thousand rupees and to me it sounds a lot of money at that time. And people say that Lala Chunnamal used the mosque for social causes. Later on Britishers bought it back in lie of 4 villages. This was the time when Britishers invited back the muslims to Old Delhi and renovated the mosque for the community. Tarun Gaur was with us to share all these interesting events from History of Old Delhi.
This walk was planned by Desi Traveller with the help of Deba Rajpal and Tarun Gaur. There was good turnaround and all of us had lot of fun eating some of the interesting things in Old Delhi. I will be sharing another post on food we tried and some history around these food items. These food businesses are run by some specific families who came to Chandi Chowk from different parts of country. And that’s why there is a such nice mix of food from different states of India.
As we entered inside Fatehpuri Mosque, we noticed these groups studying. This was first time I was seeing such interesting sessions outside television. These folks were reading something and it seemed that they were trying hard to remember what they were reading. These folks were rocking their bodies back and forth while reading.
Fatehpuri Masjid is quite different from Jama Masjid. Somehow this Mosque was not as crowded as we Jama Masjid. There is a water pond in the middle of this whole compound. You can see this water pound in first photograph.
In the rectangular compound the main Mosque is on one side and other three sides have beautiful arched corridors. It was a great visit to the mosque. Hopefully I will visit Fatehpuri Mosque again and spend a little more time. This time, I had to accompany the group and adhere to the schedule of the food-walk.
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
- Manage your waste well and don’t litter
- Use dustbins. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
- Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
- Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
- Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite
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