In the Mosque - Part-1: Tough on the soles (souls?)

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The guard said that it's time for the Zohor namaz so we can't go in. It sounded suspiciously stupid to me. It's a mosque - if you can't go in during namaz time, when can you go in? I went up to him and asked him very plainly - can't women offer namaz in there? He looked embarrassed. Oh! Namaz! Of course you can go in for namaz.

Right. So. Stop staring at me in that stupid way and tell me where the ladies' section is. He told me where the ladies' section is. But he also told me that we're not allowed to wear slippers inside the mosque. Of course. So we left the slippers outside. And the first thing we noticed was a sign-board that said we could go up a minaret and enjoy a breath-taking view of the city. Wow. That would be great!

At first sight, The Jama masjid in Old Delhi looked very much like a lot of other buildings the Mughals had constructed around here - like the Red Fort, for instance. It's impressive - made mostly of sandstone and marble. At least, the flooring was all of sandstone, and the next thing we noticed was that it seemed to be drinking-in the sunlight like magic - the surface was indescribably hot.

Apa and I looked at each other in agony and decided hit it for the prayer room asap. By the time we reached the corridor on the far right where the ladies were offering namaz, our soles were totally gone. I was pretty sure I was going to get blisters.

After the namaz, we looked into the courtyard and made an assessment of what lay before us. There were three entrances: the grand entrance hall on the Eastern wall of the courtyard, two smaller, identical gates, on the North and Southern sides, and the main lobby of the mosque on the Western side. There was a beautiful hauz in the middle of the courtyard. Actually, "courtyard" would be understating it a bit - it must have been at least 25,000 square feet, if anything at all. And all of it made of sandstone - hot burning sandstone glaring in the hot afternoon sun.

We kind of felt like two humble beings stranded in the corridor between the grand and northern entrance gates, gaping at the sheer dimensions of the courtyard we would have to cross bare-foot to reach the main lobby of the mosque.

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