India-Day 4-Delhi
Our fourth day in Delhi took us to the National Museum. The first exhibit we went through was really good and quite interesting. It presented artifacts and information on the Harappan civilization, which I had never heard of, but is one of the oldest know civilization, and perhaps the first to develop agriculture. Unfortunately, the rest of the museum was passable and poorly maintained for the national museum of such a big and culturally rich country. Without the very good, even at times overly dramatic audio tour, it would have been much worse. My favorite part of the museum were miniature, precise paintings from the Mughal empires of the 15th-17th century. We had to kind of prod the staff to have the buffet ready by noon (India is definitely a European style eat late country).
We then enjoyed some serious largesse as we walked along Rajpath and under the Gate of India-successfully cutting our way in and out of the hawker crowd. We spent the afternoon at Patana Gula-the old fort. It is incredibly impressive because it is huge. Huge. Within the 500 year old giant citadel there was a mosque, some palaces, and various other old royal building or courtyards. It was a pleasant, sunny afternoon and I really enjoyed walking around and checking out the sights. Like the Red Fort, the fee for Indians to visit is incredibly low so there are lots of (I assume) locals that use the old fort as a park
, and aren’t really too concerned about sightseeing. All the flowing, bright, and occasionally radiant saris worn by Indian women as they walk across the fort’s lawns were quite a sight to see. To contrast this, I was slightly repulsed at the litter throughout the park and the graffiti on much of the mosque and towers. Analogous to the frequent site in China of men smoking underneath No Smoking signs, the old fort had signs saying that it was a protected monument and to keep it clean about a meter or two away from most graffiti or piles of trash. I recognize that the Indian government has much, much bigger fish to fry than protecting historical relics. Yet, labor in India is as cheap and plentiful as it gets -so I think it wouldn’t take much work or organization to use the proceeds from the admission fee to hire a couple of guys off the street to actually protect such a magnificent treasure.
Our fourth day in Delhi took us to the National Museum. The first exhibit we went through was really good and quite interesting. It presented artifacts and information on the Harappan civilization, which I had never heard of, but is one of the oldest know civilization, and perhaps the first to develop agriculture. Unfortunately, the rest of the museum was passable and poorly maintained for the national museum of such a big and culturally rich country. Without the very good, even at times overly dramatic audio tour, it would have been much worse. My favorite part of the museum were miniature, precise paintings from the Mughal empires of the 15th-17th century. We had to kind of prod the staff to have the buffet ready by noon (India is definitely a European style eat late country). 
, and aren’t really too concerned about sightseeing. All the flowing, bright, and occasionally radiant saris worn by Indian women as they walk across the fort’s lawns were quite a sight to see. To contrast this, I was slightly repulsed at the litter throughout the park and the graffiti on much of the mosque and towers. Analogous to the frequent site in China of men smoking underneath No Smoking signs, the old fort had signs saying that it was a protected monument and to keep it clean about a meter or two away from most graffiti or piles of trash. I recognize that the Indian government has much, much bigger fish to fry than protecting historical relics. Yet, labor in India is as cheap and plentiful as it gets -so I think it wouldn’t take much work or organization to use the proceeds from the admission fee to hire a couple of guys off the street to actually protect such a magnificent treasure. 
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