My longest walking tour of Delhi for Cosmos
Temples, museums, monuments, and vocal symphony
I like walking without complaints; my mom made us walk when possible, especially to the farms and places where any transport is a luxury rather than a choice. The place I was born is also a close-knitted and finding the optimal shortest path to the next destination was always futile with the increasing chances of a mom stumbling across some X generation relative and her trying to catch up on everything with them, while we three siblings bicker on silly things among ourselves. My mom never went to school to study but easily won where Emotional Quotient is a metric. One example is the memorable movie days of our school, where her tactic is if we finish our homework and everything, we three siblings get to choose three movies all day. If you are aware of game theory, she simply created incentives among ourselves to work and help each other towards the Nash equilibrium of everyone finishing in the least amount of time without needing to supervise anything. It is not just limited to movies; it could be exhibitions, carnivals, exciting places or games to relax; every such day has a familiar pattern of waking up early and returning home late at night while enjoying food in restaurants throughout the day.
So, today, I decided to do it for myself – Mom's movie move. I like marking places on maps so it would be easy to plan in future or whenever I am in that locality to see what other things I could do. So, the day started with a plan to visit the Song of Cosmos vocal symphony at night, and it's easy to build a bottom-up travel itinerary from there.
Morning:
My math alarm is still at 6 AM, but these days, I take it as a challenge to wake up before it does. So, I was out of campus by 6 AM. I may be agnostic, but I like going to temples in the early mornings, especially with no other thoughts. Partly, this may have to do with the habit of mom dragging us three to the temple at 4 AM in winter, where we would be the only kids. I still reminisce about those moments whenever I go to the temple, so I started the day with Birla Mandir, Kali, Buddha, and Venkateshwara temples after getting out of the metro. It's not a stroke of luck, but these places marked on my map feel natural to thread through while aiming for the next place. I walked through Talkatora Garden and eventually ended up near gate 35 of Rastrapathi Bhavan. This is my third time visiting the place, but I have different objectives each time. Today, it's the president's museum. I was pleasantly surprised, and it's as good an experience as a national or dolls museum. Most objects are exquisite gifts conferred to presidents by states and countries. There is the constitution, signatures of India's first leaders, artworks, and replicas. I got a few postcards from the museum for Item #73. Plan for a minimum of one hour if you are going, and in feb-mar, with the blooming season, the president's garden will also be open to the public, which is my next destination. The garden houses thousands of plants, with varieties spanning tulips, roses, hyacinths, dahlia, kale, stock, pansies, California poppies, petunias, marigolds, chrysanthemums, daisies, daffodils and many more. no surprise – Anthophile Item #61. Maybe I should consider the option of becoming president seriously which me and my mom joke about. Next is Gurduwara rakab ganj; don't forget to cover your head; breakfast is the prasad from all these temples. The Parliament Museum was closed, so I visited the Philately Museum to get unique stamps. Carry cash.
Afternoon:
I have already walked 10km by now, and the strain is showing up on my legs; I think this is the longest I have walked after a knee injury, even with my daily exercise routine, but I like to push the limits. Next is the Jantar Mantar; I just finished reading the longitude book last month, and with that perspective, I can appreciate time measurement, a beautiful and confounding concept that we take for granted in this era. Next is Dhoomilal Art Gallery, but they are closed today for some reason; I walked into Connaught Place with a new eye on things thanks to Swapna Liddle's Delhi history books. I had Chole Kulcha for lunch and went to the Charka Museum. It's a small one, but I can rest thinking about Gandhi, whose My experiments with truth I have already read in university. Retook the metro to visit Triveni Kala Sangam for art galleries. Half the galleries are preparing for the following installations, so it's a short stay, but that gave me time to visit the unplanned place – Agrasen ki baoli, which you may recall from Amir Khan's PK movie. I just sat on the top steps, enjoying the view while everyone was busy finding the next best pose for their Instagram posts and reels.
Evening:
Walked back to Max Mueller to see the art installation Critical Zones. The reason for this day's journey. This has exciting themes connecting nature, environment, and climate. I was surprised to see James Lovelock's Gaia research papers with Lynn Margulis in the installation, whose book I have recently read. I especially liked the film For the Love of Corals. Ever since I read Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert, corals have always been in the back of my mind as with Item #14, and I am scared of the consequences of climate change, but this is a bit hopeful film in regards to that for future. There is another exciting project, Cloud studies, that does machine learning data analysis on videos, sensors data, and satellite imaging to analyse the climate and political issues, thus providing new tools of argument – which have already impacted thousands of people in legal cases by providing substantial proofs with this AI approach. By its impact, this is a fresh breath of air, both literally and figuratively, when AI already has a bad name for bias in recidivism or job screening applications. The night ended with Song of the Cosmos, a live vocal symphony connecting the cosmos to the exhibition. The costumes of a half-dozen characters (Nebula, Sun, Desert, Ice, Ocean, and Dark Energy) and the lyrics are worth watching. There is a complimentary red wine, but I skipped it because it was not the right setting for me – Item #51. Next stop is Delhi's metro museum. I took up an electric traction course in college, it is interesting to see it from that perspective on 25kv voltage system, standard vs broad gauge decisions, driverless train operation, bombardier flying coaches made from Germany via eight air trips for free, and the man who made it all possible – Sreedharan who got India's second highest civilian award, Padma Bhushan for this. The funny thing I learned is there was so much rush in the first week of operation that DMRC had to recruit volunteers to handle and teach passengers the new systems and issue a public announcement that the metro is here to stay, asking people to skip joy rides. So, back to campus and night mess – gobi paratha and eggs. All in all, it's an 18.4 km walk, and my legs are paining like hell, which is still short of Item #32, but we are getting there. Good night for 11 hours. I earned it.