November 28 – Lucknow Sightseeing and La Martinière’s Girl’s School Sporting Events

Sightseeing again today.

First stop is the Teele Wali Mosque Very pretty…a little Taj Mahalish from a distance.  

The finish on this is limestone mortar.  Our guide said that the individual building was built  by a minister who worked for Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal.  So of course, he couldn’t finish in marble or he would upstage his boss…isn’t done.

There was a small tomb of Shaikh Pir Muhammad on the grounds of the mosque.

Pilgrims would pour water over a holy rock and collect it for later use.  The holy rock would imbue the water with its holy properties.

Then we headed to the flower market where flowers are sold mostly for religious purpose…which means there were a lot of marigolds.

We also saw the usual laundry operation along the Gomati River.

The large, colorful fabrics are curtains used to decorate venues for weddings and festivals. 

We are taking a walking tour of old Lucknow and at the entrance were many vendors with a puddingish dish called Nimish, most were covered with silver foil and pistachio nuts.  It looked very good and of course they all wanted us to try it but we decided to stay safe on not try the local street food.

A subsequent search on Google revealed that this is also called Uttar Pradesh (an Indian State) Cream Pudding.  It is made of a little milk, a lot of heavy cream, sugar, rosewater and saffron.  These were decorated with chopped pistachio nuts, almonds and (get this) edible silver foil.  

During the walking tour through the old section of Lucknow.

We stopped at a work room where they were doing Zarozi, a special hand embroidery that was just beautiful.

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Video of embroidery work
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Next stop was one of the most important sites in Lucknow.  The Imambara is a meeting place dedicated to the grandson of Mohammed, who was martyred along with many of his followers.  There are many Imambara’s but this is the largest one in Lucknow. 

Paul climbed to the top of the building for more views.

This one also had a nice step well that had no water.

We also stopped at the Chhota Imambara, very pretty.

Nearby was the Husainabad Clock Tower, a replica of Big Ben in London.

The clock tower was beside the Husainabad Pond, a man made pool.

And another unfinished tower, the Satkhanda Watchtower.  It is also called the Seven Story Tower although there are only four stories.  The builder died before the tower was finished so it has remained unfinished.  It was intended to look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa...and does sort of resemble the Pisa tower.

And we made a quick stop at the Rumi Gate for some photos.

We also made a short stop by the Gomati River.

In the evening we had an evening of music presented by Indian musical star Sharon Prabhakar.  She played Evita for 10 years in Indian theater.  The show started with some songs by some of the students.  It was an excellent show.

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Video of student singers
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Video of Sharon
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We went to the dinner after the show.  The favorite condiment in India seems to be ketchup.  They had bowls of ketchup packets on the tables.  

It was late so we didn’t stay very long, although we did stop to chat briefly with Sharon.  She was very gracious.