In today’s fast track world, where people have built vessels that can carry hundreds of people from one point of the globe to another in a matter of a meagre hours, where people have been able to imitate much of the technology, to be seen only in a sci-fi movie or read in a Dan Brown, where people prefer to keep in touch with their social milieu via virtual profiles, webbed on virtual platforms, in this world, words such as ‘modern’, ‘mega polis’, ‘metropolitan’ and the likes, are not hard to fumble upon. In an era where almost with each advancing day, we play audience to the inexorable dance of technology, and perhaps something more obscure than that, change, it is almost intriguing how far we’ve come from where we were to where we are, without …show more content…
With monuments such as the Red Fort, Jama Masjid, Taj Mahal and many others, a new style flourished during this period as the Indo and Islamic architecture styles found solace in each other’s company. All around the Jama Masjid and Chandni Chowk, as Dalrymple puts it, the many ‘Mirzas’ and the ‘Omrahs’ had sprawling ‘havelis’ with ornate ‘jharokhas’. These establishments would open onto a courtyard, where the owner would carry his day to day business and meet whosoever came to meet him. Further down the courtyard, would be present another establishment, this however being guarded by eunuchs. It was called the ‘harem’, where the many wives of the mirza used to be present, ready to entertain their husband, as and when he wished. Dalrymple notes that these havelis are still present in the old parts of the city, but like with many other buildings of that era, they are crumbling under their own weight. Apart from language and buildings, the Mughals left behind them ‘Hookahs’, ‘Shayaris’ and ‘Kabootarbazi’, all of which were taken up readily by this city’s inhabitants as their favourite pass times. However, under the imperial rule of her highness over ‘Hindoostan’, much of what was