Transfixed by the Taj ...

Day 286 - Friday 24 October 2008

I know it's misty but that's part of the thrill ...



















The Taj Mahal is, as everyone describes it, better than you'd imagined. Easily. Especially, post-dawn when the sun has just hit it's eastern side and the River Yamuna's mist hovers around it's immaculate gardens like a cloak around the shoulders of the Mughal Emperor that built it. Having dashed through Taj Ganj's awakening back streets, trying to find a gate that was open, I felt like a messenger returning to my Emperor with important news from afar. Because the Taj is eerily familiar. You've it so many times and it dominates it's Mahal like no structure I've experienced before. Mahal is Arabic for 'village' and the white marble building we all know as the Taj Mahal is actually the mausoleum on a site (or village) consisting of about 7 impressive structures (including a mosque and resting house for travellers).



















You probably already know that the Taj Mahal was built for love. The love of the Mughal Emperor Shah-Jahan for his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their fourteenth child. I saw an Indian miniature painting of her and it reminded me that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. She was a nice looking lady but she was no Princess Di who you'll remember was immortalised for many when she was snapped here in a very 1980s outfit and hairstyle. May she still be among us if she's been re-born as a fairy which is highly possible in the Hindu belief system (well, the re-born not the fairy bit.)

http://www.taj-mahal.net/augEng/textMM/seatengN.htm

























Although this is not somewhere built by a Hindu for the Emperor Shah-Jahan (as you'll know if you read the Wikipedia link) was a Muslim whose descendants entered India from Persia and the Indus Valley in the north-west of the country (modern day Iran). Hence the fact that there's domes and minarets pervading this incredible piece of architecture (as well as inlaid inscriptions from the Quran). And yet it wasn't lived in, wasn't used much and just covered a dead body. I find that hard to accept and as a man of the 21st Century I'm chuffed to bits that he did it and I enjoyed it's majesty immensely yesterday. But if I lived in the 17th Century (the mausoleum structure was completed in 1643) and my Emperor told me to give him a load more taxes I'd question the reasoning. 'So my Lord what are these extra taxes doing for us? More clean water? Better roads?' Improves sanitation?'/'No my good man they're for a massive white marble building that I can grieve in once a week'. You get my point!

























For it's height is what impressed me the most. Something that hit me the first time I saw it and impressed me even more when I got up very close. When you pay the expensive entry fee (it's 750 IRs which is just under 10 GBPs and I'm eating big meals in Taj Ganj overlooking the Mahal for 2 GBPs) you get a free water and soft overshoes to help buff the marble. Which is exactly what you do when you get up on the raised platform that holds the mausoleum and slide around looking virtually backwards at the top and taking shots in awe!

But it's a difficult thing to photograph. For there's a weird thing going on. I think it's either sinking or sunk a fraction on one side. For unless my eyes were playing early morning tricks I found it difficult to get level. It always looks like it's sloping a bit up or a bit down. The surrounding area of Agra is very dry and dusty and the soil doesn't feel all that stable. I can imagine all that weight moving the ground it sits on!

























And what weight. The main structure is all white marble. But not the white we normally know. For if you spend long enough there (I'm very glad I've been in Agra for three days and had the full Taj experience) it changes it's whiteness before your eyes. Early morning it's got that orange tint tint and is duller than the middle of the day when it's painful to walk around on it without your sunnies covering your eyes. And that's the time to head for the shade and just stare for a while. Probably at it's incredible symmetry. For it has two identical halves in every respect apart from the gates (there's no North one because that's where the river flows by so serenely). If there's an elaborately inlaid flower design on one half of the building. There's an identical one on the other side. I applaud them for such mastery of their craft in the pre-computer days. Currently, calculating computers make this sort of stuff a cinch. In the 17th Century it's almost unbelievable.

























And the Taj transfixes you. It pulls your eyes towards it again and again and again. I stayed for about 6 hours and tried to leave at least twice. But each time I thought 'just one more look' and strolled the Mughal gardens some more (inside the Taj is a haven of peace and tranquility away from all of India's hassles).

























Although you have to find the shady corners for it's the busiest attraction of it's type that I've visited on this adventure. The flow of people is constant. It must be 100-200 in every 5 minutes at peak times including many foreigners paying top money (Indian's pay significantly less). And it has made me realise that India is like nowhere else on earth for it's contrast of the 'haves' and 'have-nots'. This is a country that has abject poverty (there are terrible literacy rates in some places) and yet the Taj is raking it in for the government and they've just launched their first mission to the moon. That's desperately wrong in my opinion. Many people here need that 'moon money'. I love the idea of space travel but it needs to take a back seat when I have a kid in terrible health begging me for money on a New Delhi street corner. Get it sorted India! Look at all these people. They must easily outweigh the conservation costs. So where's the rest going?!



















The Taj is also the besieged by students. Some of architecture. Like this lot who I had along discussion with inside the mausoleum about whether Shah-Jahan would be happy that he was laid to rest next to his wife and in doing so destroyed the symmetry of his masterpiece. You can't take photographs inside but believe me when I tell you that Mumtaz Mahal was placed bang in the middle. He's 'awkwardly' tucked in next to her. But then his son who placed him there (Aurangzeb) also imprisoned him when he acceded the role of Emperor and Shah-Jahan lived out his final years locked (in luxury!) in Agra Fort further up the Yamuna River overlooking the Taj Mahal and his dead wife. Disney couldn't write a more heart breaking story!











And how do I know all this?! Well, the day before the Taj Mahal I went to Agra Fort having employed a top auto-rickshaw driver called Aslam. For Agra was a previous capital here in northern India and it has many sites of historical significance tucked away. Firstly I should mention the Mehtab Bagh. This garden is laid out in the Mughal style and gives you the much talked about back/riverside view of the Taj Mahal. It was pretty hazy and the height of the river didn't give me the full reflection shot. But on a positive note it was a great warm up glimpse of the Taj and a bird did fly into the bottom left corner to add a bit of spice to this shot!




















And that's the Taj Mahal. The reason I'm in India. Is it worth the challenges of Indian travel? Probably. I had an ace day and I'm very glad to have seen it. The way it kept drawing my eye was remarkable. And it's so accessible you can do it in a day trip from New Delhi on a very comfortable first class train. But because of that it feels very touristy and a bit like Buckingham Palace. I'm more of a crumbling ruins man so I await Egypt and Jordan with my breath held for the adventuring!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal

Agra Fort was way better than New Delhi's. Much tighter and more intact. The moat still has water in it (though sadly the crocodiles that guarded it have long gone!) and the sandstone blocks are of a ridiculous size (a bit like Sacsayhuaman in Cuzco, Peru).











Inside there's a wonderful combination of red sandstone and white marble including this ornately symmetrical garden that was home to the Emperor's harem. If only! Imagine having 5000 women attending to your Emperor-ial needs. Though that's got to be a bit made up I reckon (the 5000 figure not my last word!!!). A few fanciful historians who've been spending a bit too long in the library and not enough time talking to girls?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harem
















Although this gentleman was sat in the harem's courtyard I don't think he belonged to it! He was cutting white marble for the restoration work and his tasche is very Emperor-esque so maybe he's a descendant?! Now that's a photograph-able face ...














Aslam also plied the back streets of Agra to Itmad-Ud-Daulah. This place is nicknamed the 'Baby Taj' because it's close by up the Yamuna, sits right on said river and has many design characteristics similar to the Taj Mahal (that was constructed after it). Completed in 1628 this other mausoleum holds the body of Mirza Ghiyas Beg who had been given the title of Itmad-Ud-Daulah (Pillar of the State). Mirza Ghiyas Beg is the grandfather of the Taj Mahal's Mumtaz Mahal. A very cool place for Indian families to hang out in the late afternoon sun (every single day is hot and sunny and it's the end of October!).
















Finally on the Agra sites list (it's a bit like Siem Reap and the Temples of Angkor all over again?!) was the minimally frequented Chini Ka Roza. The most memorable thing about this mausoleum of Mulla Shukrullah Shirazi (the Prime Minister of Emperor Shah-Jahan) was the look on the face of the man who helped me into more floor protecting shoes when I could only give him a few rupees tip. Well it was the end of the day and I was all out of small notes. The sun set wasn't bad mind you!
















And wow! What an iconic day or two. It's another early morning on the train tomorrow (they all seem to leave at either 6:15AM or 10:00PM!) and it's Jaipur in Rajasthan next. The Pink City. If you've ever seen that National Geographic channel TV show about rampaging monkeys in a city. That's Jaipur. They're mischievously aggressive those rhesus macacques. Just more of Incredible India!

By the way I've now uploaded photographs to my first Indian post if you missed it and them. Move your mouse up and right and head there now!