Delhi: Red Fort Light & Sound Show at Night with Transfer

The fort after dark

The Red Fort closes to daytime visitors in the late afternoon and then reopens for the Ishq-e-Dilli sound and light show — the walls lit in sequence, projection onto the sandstone, and a narration running from the founding of Shahjahanabad through 1857 to independence.

It lasts about an hour, it is performed in Hindi and English at different times, and it is the only way to see the fort lit.

What the fort is

Shah Jahan built it from 1638 when he moved the Mughal capital from Agra to Delhi — two kilometres of red sandstone wall on what was then the bank of the Yamuna.

The show's narration covers the parts you cannot walk through: the Diwan-i-Khas as it was when the Peacock Throne stood in it, before Nadir Shah carried the throne to Persia in 1739; the last emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, tried by the British in his own hall in 1858 and exiled to Rangoon; and the moment in 1947 when the flag went up over the Lahori Gate.

The Prime Minister has addressed the nation from those ramparts every 15 August since.

The Old Delhi option

The fuller version adds the walled city before the show — Jama Masjid, and Chandni Chowk, which is at its best in the early evening when the sweet shops are frying and the whole street is lit.

That pairing is the better booking if you have the time: the streets Shah Jahan laid out, and then the fort he laid them out from.

Two options

The show with transfers, or the show plus an Old Delhi tour.

Practical

Show timings shift between summer and winter schedules, so the pickup is set against your date. The show does not run on Mondays, when the fort is closed, or in heavy rain.

Seating is open-air on tiered benches. From November to February Delhi evenings are cold enough to want a jacket, and mosquito repellent is worth having in any month.