India Gate

Edwin Lutyens designed the arch as the terminus of his great east–west axis, and it works exactly as intended: from a distance it is a clean shape against the sky, and up close it is a wall of names. Around 13,000 of the Indian and British soldiers who died in the First World War and the Third Anglo-Afghan War are carved into its faces — regiment by regiment, rank by rank, in a typography meant to be read slowly.

The setting has changed more than the monument. The empty canopy behind it once held a statue of George V, removed in 1968 and left pointedly vacant for half a century before a statue of Subhas Chandra Bose was installed in 2022. The flame that burned beneath the arch from 1972 was merged into the National War Memorial nearby in 2021. What remains constant is the lawn: in the evening the whole city seems to walk here, and the arch becomes furniture for an enormous public living room.

Central Secretariat, Yellow and Violet lines, is the nearest station — a couple of kilometres off, so most visitors cover the last stretch by auto-rickshaw or on foot down Kartavya Path.

Roadside parking runs along Kartavya Path on both sides and fills quickly in the evening; arrive early or expect a walk from wherever you find space.

Nothing at the arch itself, but the lawns fill with ice-cream carts, chaat stalls and the odd food truck once the sun goes down.

Open at all hours and free. Parking is far from the arch by design; approach on foot from the C-Hexagon side.