Agra. The capital of the Mughal Empires in the 17th century. 1.6 million people rich. Home to the wonder of the world, Taj Mahal.
The headlines when Jet Airways’ wheels made contact with the Indira Gandhi International airport read, “New Delhi’s air quality improves to ‘very poor.’”
Pause.
This is not a joke. Delhi is home to 21.75 million people (not counting the suburbs which are equally or more polluted.) Are the people immune to breathing this air that caused upper respiratory wheeze in all of us?
All right, I can breathe normally again.
Agra
At Agra, the monkeys greeted us. They were everywhere. Homes had special rails to keep these nasty creatures out. Shopkeeper threw stones at them. But these scrappy creatures did not mind the stones, kept coming back, stealing food from private home fridges, and chasing tourist holding food.
Entering the Taj through the doors (just like the Golden Temple), the Taj got smaller, not bigger with decreasing distance. A sight of beauty.
I wish I could blow away the crowd by puffing at them. But we were told the crowd had lessened this year. The previous year, the lines extended beyond the barricades. Tip: Get the VIP, beat the lines, tickets.
A 20-minute photo shoot period followed, holding Taj, smiling against it, running after my littlest as he knelt under a barricade and ran into the not-allowed-to-walk-on gardens. The photographer we hired made my husband and I take such (silly) romantic pictures that we wondered if we had lost all romance and needed to rekindle how we take photos in general, staring at each other, holding hands and walking. He did not even spare Nana, Nani. I worried Papa would scold him. But somehow, we let the symbolism of Taj Mahal rule us for the day, even if for a day.
It was shockingly peaceful at the Taj despite the crowd. I even cared less for the parrot who pooped on my hair sitting along the benches listening to the history narrated by our guide. Strange tranquility surrounded this aspect of our a vacation where we learned.
Taj Mahal Trivia
Love. From the idea to the reality, love changes life trajectories. And, in the land where love is often arranged, sometimes misunderstood, an icon symbolizes it, flaunts it, visible from various points of the city. Love has a physical shape in Agra.
When you are standing beneath Taj’s shadow, awestruck, little frustrated with the sheer number of people you have to share this feeling with, you realize why, why this little structure is revered. It is the resting place of love that outlived a life.
Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor of India, reigned from 1628 to 1658, considered most competent, tolerant of other religions, and giving the empire its golden period. Shah Jahan gave his beloved wife, Arjumand Banu, also his childhood love, a loving title called Mumtaz Mahal that means ‘The Exalted one of the Palace.’ She bore fourteen children and died giving birth to the fourteenth child at the early age of thirty-eight. Shah Jahan spent a week in isolation. For the final resting place for Mumtaz Mahal, he built the Taj Mahal employing the absolute best, needing a village to live in for twenty-two years. A lot of their descendants still live in Agra, working in the same profession–supporting and building.
Shah Jahan’s favorite to succeed the throne was Dara Shikoh. Aurangzeb defeated Dara and imprisoned his father (preventing him from spending any more money on his late wife’s memory) where he could view the Taj Mahal from his window, cared for by his daughter, who voluntarily went into prison to look after her aging father until his death from old age. Shah Jahan now rests along with his wife at Taj Mahal. We saw the window from outside where Shah Jahan took his full-of-longing sighs at the fort beholding the Taj. Sigh.
“Being loved” was not Mumtaz Mahal’s highest accomplishment. She was a smart woman who invented “Zardozi” – the metal work sold on the streets of Agra and worldwide.
When we came out of the Taj, into the side streets where sellers (carrying inventory in their hands) chased you to buy little trinkets undeterred by the rants of unwilling customers, they were not the only chasers. The vomit-inducing, mouth-shutting smell from the gutters also found us. Such is the paradox of India where beauty lies side by side with the uglies.
We savored our lunch at a restaurant named, “The Silk Route.” We took the hour and a half trek back to New Delhi on the Gatiman. The next day I would have to say goodbye to mama and papa, who are better known as Nana, Nani and embark a new chapter of India visit.
For tonight, I slept like there was no tomorrow. Here are the photos from the one day at Agra (Taj Mahal and Baby Taj – the resting place of Nur Jahan, the queen preceding Mumtaz Mahal, the twentieth and final wife of Jahangir, Shah Jahan’s father, and Nur Jahan’s parents.)
