File:Vijay mandal 2.jpg

English: Muhammad bin Tughlaq was one of the most interesting rulers the city has seen - benevolent yet cruel, crude yet an expert calligrapher - someone endowed with too many visions and the power to realize them. It all ends in a tragedy, but then since all history has to by rule of thumb fall into one tragedy or the other, better to brave the tide and take the world on one's whims I guess.

Bijay Mandal is often described as the only remnant of Muhammad's palace, but it doesn't look like it. It can be described as a fortification with some palatial strains to it.

Though the structure, as described by Ibn Battuta does lay claim to multiple chambers with a large public hall. The first hall can be just as one enters the structure, the octagonal geometry instantly visible even to the novice eye. The interiors, as is the case with most of Delhi's ruins, slowly chew themselves into the ground.

The masonry, though not so attractive from a distance, reveals many a hue once we look in closer, the stones hath a tail to tell, but the moss hath a life to live - and so one scrubs.

Our hero supposedly was bored out his father's city of Tughlaqabad, and decided to head back. But Lal Kot was proving to be small, so linking the fortifications of Siri with Rai Pithora was established Jahanpannah, even from a modern perspective, the layout of these four cities provides valuable inputs as to what is wrong with the architects and thekedars of today - there is too much mind gap between the visionary and his executor.

So well, climbing up led to a decently large courtyard, public address system basically, but the path to the dais is what the ASI always refuses the pokey bypasser.

The upper floor yielded a chamber now gone to the dogs (two of whom looked menacing but me no scared now, so off comes the helmet as we charge towards the mongrels - who's the dog now eh?). The domes still provide an amazing silhouette, and seeing that the general architecture of the place is that of an evening reminiscence, the views are panoramic, meant to look over the marching armies and a bustling city as it seems.

The entire structure was built in bits and parts over a century, and certain elements about the scape suggest so, the first impression one gets of the place is not of uniformity.