Delhi: The Final Day (22nd March)

Got up later than planned, 9am, and an eventful beginning to our museum day. We began by flagging a Rickshaw to the Mahatma Gandhi museum. Gandhi’s significance to India cannot be understated but for some reason our Rickshaw driver had no idea where he was going. After 40 minutes, 5 stops for directions and a distance of only 4km we arrived.

The museum was ok; it contained a few of Gandhi’s personal effects: Spectacles, microscopes, sandals and books. Most impressively though was the shrine created to worship the great man; this room housed the blood stained clothes he was assassinated in and one of the three assassin’s bullets found on the ghat after his cremation. I felt moved and honoured to witness these items. Across the street we visited the Raj Ghat itself, this is now a permanent shrine visited by millions of Indians annually.

Raj Ghat-Location of Gandhi's cremation.

Next we headed to the Indira Gandhi, daughter to India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru , museum. Indira Gandhi, was the first women Prime Minister of India and after and was assassinated by her own bodyguards in 1984. A little known fact is that she declared a state of emergency in between the years 1975-1977 in which the government took authoritarian control and ordered the sterilization of men with two or more children.

Indira Gandhi's Final Walk.

This museum was very busy, perhaps because it was located inside the form PM’s house and the rooms she worked in were visible throughout the tour. It was a really good and interesting place to visit. A problem with this place was the high turnover of visitors; numerous whistle-stop tours of Indians were shuffling through so it was difficult to appreciate every piece of information on offer.

Next was a visit to the first PM’s house, Jawaharlal Nehru’s house, this was a splendid mansion but made for a candidly boring museum. No artefacts of any value were on offer and most all the walls covered with reprinted newspaper stories of the day. If it wasn’t so hot I’m sure I would have found more time to read them, instead I purchased a biography of [Mahatma] Gandhi to read in my own time.

Tomorrow we head up north to the Raj’s summer capital: Shimla. The train leaves early and I’m not looking forward to a 4.45am alarm call. No booze tonight!

Me dressing being Gandhi