Destination Features

- An Overview

Lucknow is a city in contradiction with itself. In fact, it would be deluding to call it “a city”. The Queen of the Oudh is actually three cities in a perpetual dynamic equilibrium with each other - forever in transition, yet always constant. Picturesque and mostly peaceful, the city, inspite of bursting at its seams with an ever-overflowing populace and being perpetually clamorous, still retains an old-world spaciousness and a disarming laidback demeanor.

Situated on the banks of the river Gomti, a tributary of the mighty Ganges, Lucknow has an “atmosphere” all of its own - one which appeals to the romantic in each one of us. It wouldn’t be frivolous to attribute it’s origin to the Gomti. The river lazily meanders along as its snakes its way through the city, bisecting it into two turbulent halves. Or maybe it’s the glorious past which the city enjoyed - steeped in valour and sacrifice, art and culture, character and sophistication - which tugs at your heartstrings and endears one to step back into the grandeur and magnificence that was once Lucknow.

In colour and variety its majestic edifices, some dull grey with moss, some green with grass and some blazing gold, yield place to none. Be it the Imambaras, mosques and havelis, with their rich and intricate architecture, or even the buildings of the Raj era - stately and colonial, they all stand apart in their pristine glory.

But then, Lucknow is hardly about buildings and monuments anyway. Neither is it about Nawabs and Governors.  It was, and in most parts still is, about dignity and etiquette, manners and courtesy, tehzeeb and nazakat. Though time and “modern” culture has worn much of the sheen off this bastion of refinement yet the remnants are hardly rare. From the humble rickshaw puller on the streets to the shop-owners in Aminabad and Chowk, they strive to keep the elegance intact.

With development, all the usual suspects of a bustling metropolis have emerged on the landscape of the city and provide due succor to a population determined to keep up with time at the cost of everything else. But then this is the story of modern India et al so let’s not get there. Instead, let’s embark on a journey to a city which was considered the seat of art, culture, learning and social refinement not so long ago.

Lucknow - A Mouthful of History

The city is said to have derived its name from Lakshman, the younger brother of Lord Rama, who purportedly founded the city around the spot now known as Lakshman Tila. Yet another story traces its origin to an architect named Lakhna who was employed by the Muslim rulers of Jaunpur to build medieval Lucknow.

Ironically, Lucknow came into prominence with the disintegration of the Mughal Empire. Until then, it had been a province of the Mughal Empire, ruled by governors appointed by the Mughal kings, called Nawabs. During the reign of Mohammad Shah, a Persian aristocrat from Naishapur, Burhan-ul-Mulk Mohammad Amin Saadat Ali Khan rose to power and influence at Delhi for rendering meritorious services to the Emperor. In 1732, the Emperor appointed him the Governor of Awadh (or Oudh as the Brits pronounced it!) and he became the founder of a line of rulers known to history as Nawab-Wazirs. His nephew and successor, Nawab Safdar Jung, the second Nawab went on to become the wazir of the entire Mughal Empire.

The first two Nawabs had their capital at Faizabad, north of Lucknow and closer to Ayodhya. It was the third Nawab, Asaf-ud-Daula who, transferred the capital to Lucknow in 1775, and is regarded as the designer and builder of modern Lucknow. He was best known for his generosity and kindness, which is summed up in the saying,

Jisko na de Allah, usko de Asaf-ud-Daula

literally meaning that Asaf-ud-Daula gives to those whom even God deprives.

He is most famous for building Lucknow’s best known landmark, the Bara Imambara, which was initiated as a food-for-work programme to provide relief to the people during a particularly long famine, in 1784. Those who helped build it were paid wages and given food from a community kitchen. It is said that when the famine showed no signs of abating, the Nawab’s soldiers used to break down at night whatever was made during the day, and so the work was prolonged till the famine got over. It was then that this piece-de-résistance was completed. He also built the Rumi Darwaza and the Bibiapur Kothi. During his reign, the fame and luxury of Awadh reached its peak.

The British annexed the province in 1856, on the ambiguous grounds of misgovernance and deported the last Nawab of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah, to Calcutta. A year later, the Revolt of 1857 broke out and the flames spread to Lucknow, where the atmosphere was already charged. The sepoys besieged the residence of the Governor, the British Residency and for six months, brought the mighty Empire literally to its knees. Pitched battles were fought in parks and gardens and almost all buildings became scenes of sieges. For months the city was ruthlessly battered. Scarred walls and ruins scattered over the city bear mute testimony to the pitched battle that ensued here. The conclusive battle was fought at Sikanderbagh, the summer house of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, on the banks of the river Gomti where the valiant sepoys were finally beaten.

After the war, the city subsequently became the capital of the state. With the influx of government offices and the establishment of a large military centre and the development of cultural and educational institutions, among them Asia’s first college for women, the Isabella Thoburn college, Lucknow grew rapidly and recovered most of what it had seen being torn away.

Lucknow - Welcome to the Circus

The most unmistakable aspect of Lucknow are the people. Primarily because they are everywhere - hanging out of buses, queued in front of cinemas, jostling on the sidewalks - they are just all over the place. And they are uproariously funny - right from the rickshaw puller taking an almost stationary turn, even in the face of blaring horns and possessed motorcyclists, who appears to be caught in a time warp to the speed demons themselves, who seem to be possessed with a suicidal desire to emulate the Kamikaze bombers, snaking their way in and out of traffic thereby ensuring that chaos is maintained both in the universe and on the streets; from the old timers who huddle in pockets at dawn and dusk to lament the passing away of a city and a culture that they sorely miss only to knocked out of their reverie by the deafening sound of yet another jing-bang horn, to the slick heeled who celebrate the coming of age of yet another majorly middle class Indian city by making sure they are seen in some mall and multiplex on any given day. Then there are the wannabes and the road-romeos who keep abreast with every fashion trend from Hawaii to Havana and wear it all at the same time. But the most nauseating are the ministers and their cohorts and their uncles and their nephews and their cousins and so on and so forth who make it a point to painstakingly delineate the entire connection at every plausible opportunity and then demand for some favour for the same effort. They park their cars in the middle of the road, on a train they don’t let anyone else board; they jump every traffic light, they always look to pick up a fight; for they know a minister, they know a minister, ye ye ye ye they know a minister! Well this is the circus that Lucknow has become of late. But patches of sanity can still be found in most places of the city - where people still say pehle aap and remind one of the time when tehzeeb and nazakat were synonymous with the city. How long they remain that way, is a wondrous million dollar question.

- The Rollercoaster Ride

Let the history class begin. The Nawabs were the first to build anything worth of any consequence here. Among them the most famous ones were constructed during the reign of the third incumbent, Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula namely the Bara Imambara and the Rumi Darwaza.

The Bara Imambara stands on the west bank of the Gomti, very close to the oldest part of the city. This architectural marvel, designed by the architect Kifayatullah who lies buried here in state next to Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula’s tomb, is entirely made without any piece of iron or wood. It is more akin to a House of Wonders considering the astounding phenomena that can be experienced in there. The most befuddling is the Great Hall, having the largest vaulted ceiling in Asia, which does not have a single supporting pillar. And that’s just the beginning. The Great Hall has three different domes, representing three different schools of architecture - Chinese, Greek and Persian, yet the roof is absolutely flat from the top. It has a novel espionage system too. One can hear whatever is being said at one end of the hall, at any other end of it. The walls indeed have ears! Above the hall is a complicated labyrinth of galleries and corridors. Many a person is rumored to have been lost forever in its maze. Once on the roof brace yourself for another wonder. The 163ft long façade has numerous arched windows. However, one can peer through any of the arches and see right through the centre of the large impressive gateway which is the entrance to the Imambara. It was made such so that soldiers at any arch could keep a watch on the gate! The gateway leads to a big quadrangle at one side of which is a fine flight of steps going up to the wrought-iron gates of a terraced garden, modeled after the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. To the right of this garden, once a raised platform, is the magnificent Asifi Mosque, 150ft high, with stairs leading up to the summit. From the top there is an amazing view of the city, and its striking skyline. To the left is a baoli, a step well or tank. Legend has it that there are tunnels leading from beneath the baoli to places like Delhi, Agra and Faizabad. In fact, huge tunnels have been discovered leading to the Chattar Manzil so the existence of the others doesn’t really seem that far fetched.

An Imambara is a building in which Moharram is celebrated. Every year during Moharram the ‘imambaras’ are illuminated with numerous lamps and religious services are held in commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussain. 

At the western edge of the Bara Imambara stands the majestic Rumi Darwaza or the Turkish Gate, named so as it points towards Turkey, also built by Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula in 1784. Crowned by a beautiful turret it is actually a half dome. The entire Imambara complex thus constitutes a breathtaking panoply of domes, spires and turrets jutting into the sky.

About a mile west of the Rumi Darwaza stands the Husainabad Clock Tower, built in 1881 by Nawab Mohammad Ali Shah and said to be the tallest in the country.

On passing through the Rumi Darwaza one can get to the Picture Gallery in a double-storey red-brick palace called the Talukdar Hall, in which hangs an impressive collection of life size portraits of the Nawabs. It is here that one can witness history as it happened through the rule of the Nawabs.

Further on beyond the Rumi Darwaza is the later and more ornate Husainabad Imambara also called the Chhota Imambara, built by Nawab Mohammad Ali Shah in 1850 as a burial place for himself. On the northern side is a gateway decorated with two fishes, the dynastic crest of the Nawabs of Awadh. The walls of the mausoleum are decorated with Arabic verses. Chandeliers, gilt-edged mirrors, colourful embellishments, the King’s throne and ornate tazias adorn the interiors, which come alive when the chandeliers are lit during Moharram.

Further down from here is the enormous and impressive Juma Masjid, embellished in deep turquoise. Nawab Mohammad Ali Shah, who started the construction, intended it to surpass in grandeur and magnificence all other mosques in the country, but he died before it could be completed. For years the structure stood unfinished until it was finally completed by Begum Mallika Jehan.

Near the Hardinge Bridge - supposedly one of the oldest surviving masonry bridges in the country - overlooking the Gomti is the high ground called Lakshman ka Tila which is supposed to be the original centre of the city founded by Lakshman. The mound is now crowned by a majestic mosque, called Aurangzeb’s Mosque. This Mughal practice of building mosques over contentious and communally sensitive locations can be seen elsewhere too.

Further along the Gomti and away from the old city lies a magnificent three storied structure with an elegant façade and a fine dome surmounted by a gilt umbrella which gives it its name, Chattar Manzil. Overlooking the river, its fabulous furnishings and lofty halls made it a premier palace of the State. There are huge tah khanas or cellars and secret tunnels, like the one leading to the Bara Imambara. After Independence, the building was taken over by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research to establish the Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI).

Beyond the Chattar Manzil, towards the centre of the city, are the two majestic tombs built for Nawab Saadat Ali Khan and his beautiful wife, Khursheed Begum by his son Ghaziuddin Haider.

Behind the mausoleum of Saadat Ali Khan is a magnificent quadrangle called Kaiser Bagh or the Emperor’s Gardens, built by the last Nawab of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah, in 1850 for a lavish sum of Rs. 80 lakhs. In the days of yore when all of Lucknow used to be a walled city, these were the Royal Gardens lying just inside the city walls. On either side of a park with the statue of Sir Harcourt Butler, one of the Governors of the State, are rows of yellow sandstone buildings which once used to be the Royal Harem. In the centre is a stone edifice of picturesque design called the Safed Baradari or the White Pavilion. The Baradari is surrounded by large parks and courts having marble pavilions. On its left is the Bhatkhande Music University while on the western side is the Amir-ud-Daula Public Library, housed in yet another impressive structure.

In the other direction back towards the river lies Khursheed Manzil, an European style castle, built for the beautiful Khursheed Begum. Begun by Nawab Saadat Ali Khan who named it after his wife, it was completed by his son Ghaziuddin Haider. Its foreign architecture was the result of a fashion started by a French General, Claude Martin. The castle with towers and a moat totally resembles a medieval castle. And it lived up to its name, when in 1857 a grim battle was fought here. The Government, in 1876, gifted it to the Governors of the Martiniere who now run the La Martiniere School for Girls in it.

Actually, no discussion about Lucknow or its architecture can be wholesome without a mention of General Claude Martin and Constantia. Martin was a French adventurer and soldier who is credited with designing the first hot air balloon in India. He also built many buildings in Lucknow including his crowning glory, Constantia, which eventually became his tomb. This towering edifice is visible all along the east bank of the Gomti. Martin had properties in Lucknow, Calcutta and Lyon, which were converted into schools after his death as per his will. The Constantia and the sprawling estates around it now house the La Martiniere School for Boys. A part of it was leased to the government and was converted into the Lucknow Golf Course. La Martiniere-Constantia was another stronghold of the sepoys during the 1857 Mutiny. Now it is a scary building with Gothic architecture where school children love venturing into its numerous vaults and secret passages. It has also been host to several film crews, notable among them being Gadar where the protagonist, memorably, uproots a canon from the building in an amusing display of unbound machismo.

To complete the class, we need to mention the British, who too left their mark on the soil of this historic city, visible in buildings such as the Council House, modeled after Lutyen’s Rashtrapati Bhawan, now the seat of the UP Government. Adjacent is the Post Office, which lords over the entrance to Hazratganj, the main shopping avenue. And how can anyone landing in Lucknow by train ever avoid being mesmerized by the huge Railway Station built in the neo-Rajasthani style. But the pride of place goes to a structure which hardly exists, the melancholic ruins of the Residency, which lay besieged by the sepoys in 1857 for a period of six months. Once home to the British Resident and his entire army, the large, handsome typically English building now stands mute testimony to the ravages of the war. Its shell-shocked exteriors at dusk turn into a canvas for an audio-visual representation of the glorious past of Lucknow, one that’s de rigueur. Apart from the ruins and cemetery, which are inevitably rumored to be haunted, the most interesting part is the Main House, which has a museum of sorts and a harrowing basement where each cannonball mark is identified along with the victim. It’s difficult not be overtaken by the imagery of what might have ensued in those fateful days and have a sense of remorse over the dead, especially above the sign which says that a 4 year old girl was hit by a shell here.

Lucknow - Gastronomicity

There are two basic problems with eating out in a city like Lucknow. First, the simpler one: Deciding where to start. Having decided that means bracing oneself for the second, much-tougher-weighing-scale-tipper question: Where to stop? Simply put, it’s not humanly possible to sample all that Lucknow can serve you in one single day. The sheer variety of fare available for one’s taste buds actually tasks your brain more than your stomach, without subjecting your wallet to much exercise.

However, purely for the sake of academically chronicling the colourful palate of the City of Nawabs, be enlightened that a gastronomic journey through the kitchens and rasois will take one through a roller-coaster ride of spices, aromas and flavours. A word of caution though - Lucknow is not for the meek-livered, or the calorie-conscious. So, if you happen to be one of them, then please, Subway beckons.

To savour Lucknow in its entirety, one has to rise with the sun. At dawn, all roads lead to the Old City, or Chowk to be precise. On reaching there, head straight for the once-majestic Gol Darwaza (Circular Gate), the imposing entrance to the ever bustling Chowk, now standing mute testimony to the ravages of a city bursting at its seams.

There, amidst the hustle and flow of a city awakeining to a brand new day, one can have a taste of undeniably the most sinful delicacy ever available fresh at daybreak - possibly the only time of the day when it can be had, owning to its tender constitution. Going under the name of Malai Makkhan (Butter Cream), it more than lives up to its title by just melting in your mouth. Sold by a handful of sellers in ornate glass baskets, one of whom has reputedly been selling it for the last 60 years, this exquisite preparation is rather painstakingly created by leaving cream out in the open overnight to let it soak in the dew and then whisking the resulting mixture till it becomes stiff. And insanely delicious. Add to that some Kesar (Saffron) flavouring and you have the headiest concoction that you ever started your day with. As light as a feather and as sumptuous as heaven. One definitely can’t stop asking for more. And the people thronging there since centuries will more than vouch for it.

Once satiated (hopefully!), proceed to wash it down with some wholesome Thandai or Lassi or Mattha (Butter Milk) at Raja Thandai right next to the imposing gate. Or, if you happen to harbour a partiality towards all things sweet then let go at the famous Ram Asrey Sweet shop situated nearby, which has been dishing out an amazing variety of sweets ever since 1805!

Right across the Thandai shop is Shukla Chaat House, the last word in Chaat, but we will come back to it later.

Since, the dawn has been taken care of, its time now for some filling (yeah, you read it right!) brunch to set the pace of the day. If you are vegetarian, you will have to make the trip to Netraam Sons in neighbouring Aminabad, for some mouth-watering Jalebis and Imartis served piping hot as a prelude to sizzling Chhole Bathures or Kachodis, the latter presented with an assortment of fillings, sabzies, curries and chutnies. Alternatively, meat connoisseurs can just walk through Gol Darwaza along the lanes of the fabled Chowk to the Akbari Gate, where resides Rahim’s famous for its Nahari-Kulcha, yet another labourious overnight preparation. The small eatery may not be the most hygienic of places to eat but it still serves the most sumptuous meat preparation ever. Paired with fresh warm kulchas it is the best start to a delight filled day.