Nizamuddin Auliya (1238 - 3 April 1325) - Nizamuddin Auliya was a famous Sufi saint and his tomb lies around the corner from us.  The immediate surroundings of the tomb are a jumble of medieval looking buildings with Muslim locals living, working and worshiping on top of one another.  I don't go here by myself and none of us venture in after dusk.  It feels very alien.  We are in sight and sound of a major flyover but crossing that main road and walking into the Nizamuddin West neighborhood is like stepping back several centuries.  The streets are very narrow and there are goats running and climbing everywhere.  A shady tree incongruously (this is a Muslim neighborhood) looks as though someone has put an offering at the base of it.  A couple of vegetable vendors have small barrows laden with fresh vegetables and the local barber is wielding his razor under another large shady tree while his customer examines the progress in the mirror propped up against the trunk of the tree.  Laundry is hanging on any available surface.  Flies buzz lazily around the hanging butchered meat (those goats are here for a good purpose) and the smell of the butcher's establishment mixes with the city grime.  There are several tailors busy at their narrow doors and plenty of people watching the obvious intruders.  Bus loads of Indian tourists come daily, but they don't stand out quite like us.  We can see what we think is the dome of the tomb and keep walking in circles towards it.  We find a collection of sellers with fairly elaborate stalls of tourist like items as well as the required head coverings and masses and masses of fragrant rose petals, and a young chap trying to earn some money guarding all the shoes that visitors to the site have to discard at this point, all set up around an ornate arched entrance.

We all need the head coverings.  There is no English sign to indicate we have got to the place we are looking for,  but everyone is urging us in and all those vendors wouldn't be in the wrong spot so we leave our shoes to the entrepreneurial young man and head down the cool marble floored corridor in the stream of people.  There are many sitting along the walls, some lying down and sleeping,some begging with open hands and mournful moanings.  A few little children in varying degrees of dress wander about with no apparent anxiety or parental supervision.  The corridor takes a left turn.  More little shops with Arabic and Urdu and western translations. (Of what?  We'll have to go back and find out.  It is a topic for another post, but it is remarkable that this is a Muslim neighborhood and Nizamuddin was a Sufi and today people of many faiths come to his tomb.  India is puzzling.)  The corridor takes a right and there is an opening to the right showing the jumble of building balanced tightly upon one another.  Another right, and then a left and a quick right (more small shops) and another opening showing where the large ablution pool should be. 

Tank is what it is called here - not a pool or a pond, but a tank. 

The idea, that we can probably all relate to, is that to come onto holy ground one should be clean.  This tank, however, is very, very sad.  Another Indian mystery: if the tomb is so precious, and we take our shoes off at the door and walk 1/4 mile barefoot to get to it, why don't people respect the tank enough to not throw their rubbish in it?  We've passed a couple of rooms which have some learned discussion going on inside and the whole length of the passageway we've passed the same odd assortment of people who seem to be permanent fixtures.

Finally, at the end of the tank the corridor opens onto a square with the saint's tomb in the center and a mosque off to the west side.  There are perhaps a hundred people milling, sitting, praying, discussing and a couple of vendors still hoping I'll buy rose petals for the tombs (there are several other venerables buried here).  The little town was built onto the tomb and mosque areas.  Nizamuddin seems to have been gifted at reconciliation and after his death his reputation for healing was so respected that others wanted to live within the shadow of his tomb so there are other buildings literally built onto all four sides of the tomb area.

 The overhead canopy is pulled out to protect visitors from the sunlight and makes the whole area seem smaller and more crowded.  Women are not permitted into the actual tomb, but men are encouraged to circle it inside the pillars.  It is fascinating - the whole area perhaps only about four square blocks and less than 1/2 mile from two five star hotels - but it is quite a bonus to stop back into 2010.