Change In Plans

CLASSIC

Greetings from Agra, home of the Taj Mahal and a whole lot more. This post is about our time in Agra outside of seeing the Taj Mahal.

After visiting the Taj Mahal yesterday morning, we had a full day of exploring Agra. We had a handsome, lushly bearded local guide named Bilal, who asked that we call him “Haji.” He had gone to Mecca in 2003, when he was 42, and had taken on the honorific title of the pilgrim. Everywhere that we went, people shouted “Haji!” and smiled and waved. Three of his twelve brothers and sisters (and the eldest of his eight children) work in and around the Taj Mahal.

At the Taj Mahal, Haji was exceptionally good. His knowledge about, and passion for the monument were amazing. Several times, he took India’s (the person’s) camera, and posed us for the best shots.

CLASSIC HAJI-POSED SHOT

Later, Haji took us to a marble-inlay demonstration workshop in Agra. A row of young men sat and chiseled out floral patterns in table-sized marble slabs. Another row of young men sat and manually rotated “emery wheels,” which they used to shape tiny slivers of colored semi-precious stone. A host showed us how these inlays of all colors would be fixed into the marble carving with a centuries-old secret glue recipe.

Most of the craftsmen are members of the extended Shiraz family, who worked on the Taj Mahal itself 350 years ago. Boys are apprenticed for eight years,starting at about age 16. They concentrate on only a few of the classical designs until they are about 45, then they are skilled enough to make their own designs. 

CRAFTSMEN AT WORK

After seeing how the inlays were made, our host invited us into a show room full of beautiful tables, vases, trays, and chess boards. The overhead lights were dimmed, and the translucent marble of an ornate table top was illuminated to dramatic effect from underneath. Our host demonstrated the marble’s durability by dropping a table top onto its base from 6-8 inches (BANG!), and demonstrated its stain resistance by pouring Coke onto it. He assured us that it was easy and safe (and tax free!) to ship these heavy objects to the U.S. At this point, Tallulah leaned over and whispered loudly in my ear: “Let’s buy one!”

We looked for a while, and the tables were beautiful. Having no home, however, it made no sense to spend a lot of money on a table top.

After a dozen rounds of “Sorry, no thank you” followed by “But sir, have you considered …?”, our host opened the previously hidden door into another huge show room of smaller jewelry boxes and knick knacks. Ushering us in, he said, “Perhaps you would be interested in something smaller?”

We escaped fifteen minutes later, with Tallulah clutching an alabaster mini-Taj Mahal in a small gift box. I felt lucky to be only $8 poorer after all that.

From the marble store, Haji took us to a “special museum,” behind a high wall and steel gate. I was slightly suspicious when I noticed the “Koh-i-Noor Jewelers” sign on the museum door. Inside was a ground-floor display of three-dimensional tapestries. Silk thread was tied into elaborate geometric patterns, or pictures of birds and flowers. By building up thread, and bulging it away from the surface, the third dimension was added to the scenes.

We were led from the main gallery into a darkened room, with an opaque display case and several cloth sheets hanging from the walls. A small man, named Abhijay Kumar, followed us in with a device that looked like a huge TV remote control.

As Abhijay spoke to us about the art of three-dimensional tapestry, he pushed a button on the remote. The opaque display case became transparent, and a beautiful 200-year old robe was revealed. Then, Abhijay talked about the great masterpieces of three-dimensional tapestry, and one by one, as if by magic, the sheets rolled up into the walls, revealing backlit display cases with priceless tapestries within. Each new display was accompanied by different, thematically appropriate, soft music. The last display, the piece de resistance of a great silk tapestrist’s long career, was a huge scene of Christ on a hillside, surrounded by lambs. Slightly strange from a Muslim artist in central India, but nice to look at.

Overall, the craftsmanship and sheer physical effort were remarkable, and the slick remote-control light and sound show was the coolest. 3-D tapestry is not really our style, but we can appreciate it.

When we finished, Abhijay said, “As long as you are here, why don’t you come upstairs and see our 300-year-old emerald necklace?”. Of course, the emerald necklace was in the middle of a giant jewelry showroom, with thousands of necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, and brroches for sale. Zola desperately wanted to get his grandmother some earrings, but I gently insisted that we see the old emerald necklace and get out of there.

I had to laugh as we finally escaped to our mini-bus, and went back to the hotel for lunch. I think the average foreign tourist in Agra must be richer than us, and/or more excited about spending money on marble objects and jewelry.

After a short lunch and a long swim (Tallulah is now letting me launch her like a little cannonball in the pool), we went to tour the Agra Fort in the late afternoon. Incidentally, the old moat in front of the fort is half filled with very nasty looking water, and stinks a little.

The historical plaque outside reads, plainly “Agra Fort is the most important fort in India.” The plaque writer asserts that all other forts were less significant because the Mughal Emperors stayed at Agra, and they “ruled the country” from there. This is a strange interpretation of history: the Mughals never controlled more than about 40% of present-day India.

ZOLA AT AGRA FORT

Nevertheless, the fort was nice to look at. Haji related the history of the drunken emperor, Jehangir, who planted vineyards in the palace gardens. We saw the rooms where Shah Jehan lived out his eight years of house arrest, imposed by his son, and the window from which he could look at his beloved Taj Mahal.
Between traffic and tourism fatigue, we didn’t make it to any of the other sights in Agra. Probably our loss, but perhaps we will be back.

This morning we are driving back up to Delhi, saying goodbye to Indrajit, and flying down to Cochin, on the southwest coast of Kerala State. Agra was a wonderful part of our trip.

TRUE OR FALSE? - THE TAJ MAHAL IS ACTUALLY VERY TINY

Greetings from Agra, home of three UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  This short post is about our morning at  the Taj Mahal.

It is hard to say anything original about the beauty and grandeur of the Taj Mahal.  We came with very high expectations, and they were exceeded wildly.  The Taj Mahal  is such an iconic visual image that viewing it from a distance was too familiar to feel special.

As we walked through the spectacular red sandstone gates, we started to appreciate the genius of the architecture much more: nearly absolute symmetry along two axes, many tricks of the eye to frame and enhance the underlying beauty.  It really is an architectural masterpiece.

Once we got close to, and inside, the Taj Mahal itself we were able to appreciate the much-vaunted craftsmanship.  The decorative stone work is all chiseled out of marble, and inlaid with semi-precious stones.  The ornateness (ornatity? ornatitude?) is like nothing else we have seen anywhere, and really can not be appreciated from a distance.  It almost makes the Moroccan tilework we admired so much look simple and prefabricated by comparison.

There is nothing that I can add to the torrent of descriptive words and superlatives written about the Taj Mahal since it was completed in 1653.  More eloquent versions of the above two paragraphs could be found in any guidebook.  What might be more interesting is a series of observation-based true/false responses to prejudicial statements and questions we would have gotten from movies, TV, books, anecdotes.
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Although the Taj Mahal itself is beautiful, the surrounding area is very dirty and rundown?  There is an open sewer running right past the grounds? - FALSE.  The grounds and the surrounding area are clean and well maintained by any standard. There is a “zero emissions zone” of golf carts and battery-powered tuk tuks for a few hundred meters outside the main gates (not sure it makes any difference, but it is a symbolic gesture).  The Yamuna River could use more water, but does not smell or appear particularly polluted.  The rest of Agra seemed no better or worse than the other small cities we have seen in India.

The Taj Mahal perfectly symmetrical along two axes?  - ALMOST TRUE.  In the entire colossal structure, the only asymmetry is the placement of Shah Jahan’s tomb just alongside his wife’s tomb (which is exactly at the center).  This seems OK, since he built it as a monument to her, and this small asymmetry in death is almost poetic.  To my totally untrained eye, everything else, down to smallest details, is symmetrical.  Cool.

Did Shah Jahan, the Mughal Emperor, get deposed, and die as a prisoner in Agra Fort? - TRUE.  Shah Jahan’s son, Aurangzeb, was a nasty piece of work.  Aurangzeb had his brothers murdered, overthrew and imprisoned his father, and then ruled the Mughal Empire with staggering incompetence.  Shah Jahan was locked in Agra Fort, but his son gave him a window with a view of the Taj Mahal.  The legend is that Shah Jahan cried so much that he ruined his eyes in six months, but that his daughter brought him a big diamond to correct his vision, so he could still see his wife’s grave.

Did Shah Jahan promise his wife on her deathbed to build the Taj Mahal? - TRUE.  Mumtaz Mahal (whose name meant “beauty of the palace”) was Shah Jahan’s third and favorite wife.  She died while giving birth to their fourteenth child.  Before she died, she asked her husband to promise three things: (1) never marry anyone else; (2) take good care of the children; (3) build a monument to their love.  He never married again, and he definitely built the monument.  Of the 14 children, only Aurangzeb and two unmarried daughters outlived Shah Jahan, so it is hard to say that he fulfilled promise #2.  Not really his fault, though.

Was there a plan to build a matching “black Taj Mahal” across the river? - TRUE.  It was supposed to be his own mausoleum, with a bridge between the two buildings, “so their soul could meet over the river at night.” Shah Jahan had started work on the foundation when his son overthrew him.

After the Taj Mahal was completed, to prevent the workers from making anything else so beautiful, were they killed, or blinded, or have their hands cut off? - FALSE.  Apparently they were paid a lot of money, but were free to do what they wanted.  The Shiraz family, which did a lot of the detailed stone inlay work, is now several-thousand strong in Agra, and making beautiful marble tables, vases, etc.

Aren’t the crowds unbelievably bad at the Taj Mahal? - FALSE. This is peak season, and it wasn’t bad at all.  Average for the year is 15,000 visitors per day, and peak (like yesterday) is about 25,000.  The space is so vast that it didn’t seem crowded at all, certainly not crowded relative to the streets of old Agra a few miles away.

Do the four minarets lean like the Tower of Pisa? - TRUE. The Turkish architect designed the minarets to lean away from the Taj Mahal, so that if they ever fell, they would not damage the main building.  This either shows incredible foresight and planning, or a real lack of confidence in the construction.  My guess is the former.  The towers lean out visibly, but have been standing for over 350 years.

Thank you for playing Taj Mahal trivia.  It is really something worth seeing live and in person.  

Today we drive back t Delhi, and fly to Kochin, way down in the South of India.  Sadly, today we also say goodbye to our great guide and friend, Indrajit.  Zola and Tallulah may choose to stay with him, and go look for tigers for the next few months.

GREETINGS FROM THE TAJ MAHAL