Delhi owes many of its gardens in and around the walled city to royal ladies. While the men were busy building forts and winning wars, the ladies added their feminine touch to the city, building beautiful gardens, usually called Baradari (meaning 12 openings) with airy pavilions and rows of fountains. Qudsia Bagh, close to Kashmere gate, is one such garden.

This huge garden with a palace and a private mosque, which in its hay days extended up to the banks of the Yamuna, was built in 1748 by Qudsia Begum, the wife of Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah Rangeela. The legend is that Qudsia begum was a dancing girl and was called Udham Bai before she married the emperor and got the title of Qudsia Begum. She built this garden fortress exclusively for herself in the same year that her husband died.

It is said that the garden had three storied fort-like walls all around it, with massive gateways on all four sides, but during the 1857 revolt, this garden was used by the British troops as their camp and most of the walls and gateways were destroyed.

Later, it was restored by the British in their own style, and the entrance to the garden was restricted to locals, who were allowed to enter only at certain times during the day. What remains today is one gateway, one colonial-looking building which might have been the palace, and a mosque. The gateway is called Hathi or Elephant gate, and even in its ruined state, it looks majestic.

The mosque is simple, with three domes, and is still a functioning mosque, and the colonial building standing in the middle of the garden looks like it may have been built on top of an existing building. Both mosque and building have recently been restored.

The garden was built in the traditional Persian char bagh (four garden) style, and was originally divided into four parts by the flowing water bodies and walkaways. There was also a raised pavilion to sit and admire the garden, and the four parts had various flower beds and fruit trees.

Today this garden is well maintained and a lot of birds, particularly peacocks, can be seen there. It is ideal for a peaceful walk, but also to sit back on a bench and admire the traces that history has left behind and imagine its lost grandeur.