A Hall With No Beams
The Bara Imambara was built to give a starving city work. It still holds its breath.
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In 1784, during a terrible famine, Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula began building the Bara Imambara. The story every guide tells is that labourers built by day and nobles, too proud to be seen working, were quietly paid to pull parts of it down by night, so that the work and the wages would last.
Whether that is true or not, you understand why people want to believe it when you stand in the central hall. It is enormous, and there is not a single beam or pillar holding up the roof. The vault simply stands, held by its own shape.
Lost on purpose
Above the hall is the Bhool Bhulaiya, a maze of narrow passages and identical doorways. Children run ahead and call out, and their voices come back from the wrong direction. A guide strikes a match against one wall and you hear it clearly from the far side of the gallery.
Late in the afternoon the stone turns the colour of turmeric and the pigeons settle along the parapets. The city's traffic is right outside the gate, but inside the courtyard it feels very far away.
