A Sultan rests here, but not in peace

“Chirodin Kaharo Saman Nahi Jay/Aajke Je Rajadhiraj, Kal Se Bhikkha Chay”...

This song by Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, with a simple message (Good times do not last forever/Overnight, a great king may turn into a beggar), used to be cited by my mother quite often, to drive home the point that life is ephemeral.

I remembered it this morning, during a heritage walk with Delhi Karavan to the tomb of Sultan Bahlol Lodi, who was the founder of Lodi dynasty, the last rulers of the Delhi Sultanate before the Mughals came here. Lodi was an able military general who won many battles and administered a large tract of north India for a long 38 years from 1451, but his tomb now lies mostly forgotten and unkempt, deep inside the congested neighbourhood of Chirag Delhi, named after Sufi saint Hazrat Khwaja Mehmood Nasiruddin Roshan Chirag-e-Dehli whose dargah is situated nearby.

Of course, maintenance of such structures is difficult in view of the rapid urban growth, and to be fair, even Asar-us- Sanadid, the seminal 1847 work on Delhi by Sayyid Ahmad Khan, describes it as being in a “state of disrepair". But it somehow reminded me of another walk in March 2018 when we were led by historian Rana Safvi through narrow and dark bylanes of old Delhi to the grave of Sultan Razia. I was shocked to see that South Asia's first female monarch doesn’t even have a roof over her resting place! Time is a great leveller, after all. Bahlol's son Sikander Lodi's tomb is in a much better state, as it lies inside Lodi Garden.

After the walk ended, I walked some more on my own to see another Lodi-era structure, the tomb of Sufi saint Sheikh Yusuf Qattal in Khirki. It is a small tomb, but very nice to look at, with beautiful “jali" work. See for yourself.

Sultan Bahlol Lodi's tomb

Dargah of Hazrat Roshan Chirag-e-Dehli 

Tomb of Sheikh Yusuf Qattal