There is so much love in the air...

In the age of multiplexes, shopping malls, and fun parks, we do not feel the dearth of places to visit and have fun with friends and family. But once in a while, we do like to visit our national monuments and places of historical interest, which are now lamenting over their sad state of neglect. Being in Delhi, which has quite a good number of monuments, I was struck with the idea of visiting "JANTAR-MANTAR", the famous observatory of Sawai Raja Jai Singh, which I had never visited before. However, I feel sad now of having visited the place.

On a chilly winter afternoon, I along with my cousin and two of his friends were roaming around Canaught Place, busy market place in Delhi. Festive season was on and that is why we could see quite a number of people enjoying their time. We, after roaming a lot decided to watch the movie "Die Another Day", the latest of Bond movies, running at Plaza Theatre near by. The show was to commence at 3.30 p.m. and we had almost two hours to kill. Suddenly I came up with the idea of visiting "Jantar-Mantar". My cousin and his friends agreed as none of them had visited the place. That is how we came to a decision, which led us to this ancient observatory.

I was happy to see a considerable number of visitors at the ticket counter and inside the "Jantar-Mantar". Please do not think that I am writing a travelogue or an essay on "How I spent a day with my friends". In fact no one in his right frame of mind would entertain this piece to come in the light unless one is really short of some readable material. I am writing this out of sheer frustration. What I saw inside "Jantar-Mantar" was so loath some and disgraceful that I tried to figure out what message is it sending out to the rest of the world through the foreign visitors who visit the places of bygone era.

continued in three more posts...