Dadi-Poti Tombs

On a low rocky knoll just north of the lane that runs from Sri Aurobindo Marg into Deer Park stand two stone tombs of very different size, and Delhi has always preferred a good story to an empty label.

• Locals christened the pair 'Dadi-Poti' — grandmother and granddaughter — not because anyone knows who lies inside, but simply because one dome is stout and matronly while the other is smaller and slighter.
• It is one of the city's most charming misnomers, hung on two monuments whose builders, dates of death, and even names have slipped entirely out of the record.
• What makes the knoll rewarding is the architecture lesson hiding in plain sight.
• The smaller 'Poti' tomb carries the fingerprints of the Tughlaq century (roughly the late 1300s): thick, battered walls that lean gently inward like a fortress, sparse ornament, and the sober, muscular look that Tughlaq masons favoured.
• The larger 'Dadi' beside it belongs to the Lodi age of the fifteenth century — a taller, more confident cube crowned by a fuller dome, the masonry lighter and the profile more graceful.
• Standing between them you can read two dynasties of Delhi's building tradition in a single glance, a compression you rarely get outside a museum.
• Crucially, the tombs sit outside the ticketed, walled Hauz Khas complex a short distance west, which means no gate, no queue and no fee — they are Archaeological Survey of India monuments left open in a public green.
• Joggers loop past them, students sketch the domes, and weekend families spread picnics in the shade while the grey stone keeps its secrets.
• The lack of signage is part of the appeal: this is heritage stumbled upon, not curated.
• For the vegetarian traveller the location is ideal, because Hauz Khas is one of South Delhi's most reliable pockets for meat-free eating.
• Naivedyam in Hauz Khas Village, barely a kilometre away, serves pure-vegetarian South Indian thalis and crisp dosas in a carved Chettinad-style room, and the wider neighbourhood is thick with sattvic cafes.
• Carry your own water and a few snacks if you plan to linger in the park, since the tombs themselves have no kiosk.
• Come early on a bright, dry-season morning: the light rakes beautifully across the two domes, the park is quiet, and Delhi's winter smog (worst November to January) is thinner before mid-morning traffic builds.
• Green Park metro is a five-minute walk east, making this an easy, free, offbeat stop to fold into a Hauz Khas afternoon.