Purana Qila

This guide to Purana Qila in Delhi traces the rivalry between the Mughal emperor Humayun, who founded his capital here in the fifteen-thirties, and the Afghan commander Sher Shah Suri, who defeated him and completed these walls under a different name during Humayun's exile in Persia. It follows Humayun's return to power in fifteen fifty-five and the ordinary evening, months later, when the call to prayer reached him on the narrow stairs of the octagonal tower at the fort's heart. Look up at those two steep flights of granite steps as you listen.