Delhiwale: Lodhi’s nine lives

Lodhi Garden in Delhi turns 90, showcasing its beauty through stories of diverse visitors who find solace, connection, and inspiration within its grounds.

Lodhi Garden has turned 90. The Delhi park is made of monuments, trees, grass, flowers, and birds. But its soul lies in its humans. Here are nine lives fleetingly encountered in the park over a span of nine years.

Lodhi Garden is made of monuments, trees, grass, flowers, and birds. (Mayank Austen Soofi)

Seated on a bench, law student Parthivi is writing by hand. She often posts handwritten letters to friends, even if replies are rare. The act, she says, gives her words a tangible weight, “a piece of me within.”

Kavita Joshi Rai, founder of @dogs_of_lodhi, is a photo-chronicler of Lodhi Garden’s canine dwellers. A park regular for 17 years, she is part of a community of “animal-friendly souls” that feeds and cares for nearly 50 dogs—abandoned, wandering, or raised within the park. Her late dog, Sultan, was friends with every dog here.

On the eve of quitting the city for her native Hyderabad, Delhi-based singer Vidya Rao walks through Lodhi Garden, recalling a long-ago afternoon spent here: “I had recently arrived in Delhi; I was alone, and often quite confused and frightened.” She walks to a stone wall where, back then, “I had given way to tears.“

Rupesh and Ravikant, both 18 and from Palwal, are childhood friends beginning a new life in Delhi. On their eighth day in the city, they are spending the afternoon in Lodhi Garden, lying on a grassy slope. “We’ve played every game together,” says Rupesh. While Ravikant credits his friend as the one who “always looks after my interests.” Both are unsure of future, but sure of their “dosti.”

Harsh Vardhan is with a book, sitting under a park tree. He comes weekly to this spot, his “favourite reading spot.” Sometimes he closes the book, and shuts his eyes “to hear the birds.” On a sabbatical from work, he is writing a novel.

Snack vendor Durgesh daily makes rounds of the park hawking his stuff, which is bhelpuri. He recently broke up with his girlfriend, he says. “My love story has failed,” and now he will “only have God” as his companion.

Seated one morning on a park bench, writer Annie Ernaux, visiting from France, admits she cannot connect to the tranquility of Lodhi Garden. She is more moved by everyday life, such as commuters in the Paris Metro. Minutes later, as she walks by the park’s stone bridge, she hears a bird’s twittering, which reminds her of the French singer Barbara and her “feminist” song “Dis, quand reviendras-tu?” She begins to softly sing the song to the bird.