Hauz Khas

This is a little corner of South Delhi well worth exploring. It is tucked away and mercifully preserved. Its history is what appeals to me. You wander through forested parts as it was perhaps in those days and you come across a Moghul tomb, resplendent with its dome and beautiful arched doorways. Inside lies the tomb of Firuz a really progressive leader who wanted to promote learning. On the top of his tomb and to signify it is a male tomb, a stone pen holder. For women it is a slate. The obvious comes shockingly to mind, their lives are clean slates upon which men dictate!
Hauz Khas means “royal tank” and while it was excavated during Alauddin Khilji‘s reign (1296-1316) in the second city of Delhi it was Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1351-88) of the Tughlaq dynasty who re–excavated the silted tank and cleared the clogged inlet channels. Firuz Shah built the Madrasa (Islamic School of Learning) which became a very important centre of learning, the small Mosque, a tomb for himself and six domed pavilions in its precincts. You can wander through the park and enjoy these ruins which are well enough preserved to give you an accurate picture of what life must have been like all those years ago for the young scholars who came here to learn.


During his rule he abolished many taxes, changed the laws on capital punishment, introduced regulations in administration and discouraged lavish living styles. He is credited with a large number of public works, 50 dams for irrigation across rivers, 40 mosques, 30 colleges, 100 carvansarais, 100 hospitals, 100 public baths, 150 bridges. Firuz died at the age of ninety- not a bad age for a leader in those days. Walking through the Madrassa you have a real sense of how inspirational a place it must have been, a real centre of learning and culture. The tank is now much lower, smaller and perhaps greener than all those years ago but the young couples who stroll around its edge and who sit among the ruins, as well as the countless birds that perch on the trees and in the nooks of the ancient buildings think it is a little paradise in itself.