Delhi Gate (Shahjahanabad)

Delhi Gate stands where the old walled city of Shahjahanabad once opened to the south — a lone sandstone sentinel now marooned on a busy traffic island where Netaji Subhash Marg meets Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg in Daryaganj.

• Emperor Shah Jahan raised it in 1638 as one of the principal gateways in the fortified wall that ringed his new capital, Delhi's seventh city.
• It was through this arch, tradition holds, that the emperor rode out toward the Jama Masjid for Friday prayers, and the gate has kept a certain ceremonial dignity ever since.
• Look south from the gate and you are, in effect, looking down the spine of Delhi's own history.
• Beyond Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg lie the ruins of Firozabad — Feroz Shah Kotla, the fifth city, built by Feroz Shah Tughlaq in the fourteenth century — and, further out, the massive rubble ramparts of Tughlaqabad.
• Delhi Gate was the threshold between Shah Jahan's ordered Mughal metropolis and these older, spent capitals to the south.
• A near-twin of the Kashmere Gate on the city's northern edge, it is built of red and buff sandstone and was once flanked by carved stone elephants near its entrance — a detail travellers still associate with the gate today.
• Much of Shahjahanabad's wall has vanished; stretches to the east were pulled down to make way for the Old Delhi railway lines, though the western wall survives in patches.
• The gate itself, long blackened by traffic and time, has in recent years been cleaned and conserved under the Archaeological Survey of India, its arches and merlons brought back into relief.
• There is no interior to tour and no ticket — this is a monument you read from the pavement and the pedestrian island, best appreciated on an unhurried walk that ties it to Daryaganj's Sunday book bazaar, the Red Fort, and the lanes of Old Delhi just to the north.
• For vegetarian travellers, the immediate Daryaganj strip leans heavily non-vegetarian, so it is worth walking or taking a short ride toward Chandni Chowk, where the pure-vegetarian choices open up: Jung Bahadur Kachori Wala for its celebrated dal kachori, Kuremal Mohan Lal Kulfi Wale for stuffed-fruit kulfi near Chawri Bazaar, and a dependable Bikanervala for thalis, chaat and sweets — all strictly meat-free and egg-free.
• Carry your own judgement on anything fried in shared kitchens.