Taj-e-Sunday

It had always been my dream to visit the Taj Mahal and see the wonder of the world which we have in our very own India. Already I had two occassions where I had come to Delhi but was not able to visit Agra. This time again I was in Delhi, but I had the apprehension about a possible Agra trip. I was just hoping for the best. N(my friend) promised to take me this time. We planned to go on Sunday and leave Gurgaon by 6 am. Two other friends were supposed to join, but for various reasons, they were unable to. So it was just N and me and his Fiat Palio.

Sunday dawned and I was ready before 6. N reached by 6:20 and we were on our way. It was already bright and the mercury started to rise by 7 am. It took a while and lot of gear shifts to get into a steady drive, as there were sizeable number of vehicles on the road. Our first stop was at Mc Donalds after the Mathura Refineries. A veggie burger and tea later we were back on the highway. There were two toll plaza on the way and we had to shell out a total of Rs 100 as toll alltogether for the to and fro tickets. The next major town was Vrundavan and we had planned to visit it on our way back. It was already blazing outside and though the ac was keeping us from getting cooked, we could anticipate what we were in store for, reaching the hot Agra at mid day and with the sun reflecting off the white marble! But there was no dip in our excitement. N had seen the Taj but when he was a young boy and he too looked forward to see the great monument.

We reached Agra by 10:30 am with one more add on bonus for me - I got to drive the palio for a short stretch. The raw power, the accelaration, breaking all thrilled me to the core. But as we neared the city, I did not want to take chances with local vehicles and two wheelers, so gave the steering back to N. And all too well, as just a minute later, a helmetless motorist zoomed in from nowhere and did some stunts right in front of our car! Appropriate and sturdy braking and seat belts were our saving grace. Searching for a shaded parking was not easy, so we left our poor chariot in the sun. We had to go about a kilometer to the monument from the parking lot and had options of Camel toga, electric auto and our God given legs. So we chose the third and walked up in the heat. This was to revive the creaky joints which had rusted with sitting for 4 hours.

At long last we reached the gates of the world famous monument. We purchased the entrance tickets and stood in a queue to get checked by Police personnel. We walked in with a guide who pestered us to hire him. It was an overwhelming feeling standing at the gate, seeing the Taj in all its splendor. The pesky photographers, the heavily made up tourists, the screaming children, the heat, well nothing could stand in my way as I stood absorbing the beauty of the place. Once I finished admiring the architectural beauty, I concentrated on what our guide was trying to make us 'learn'. He kept repeating the sentences again and again and asked us questions, making us repeat too. I remembered my Bengali teacher who used to make me learn poetry by repeating the lines until it was perfected like water ('Joler modhe'). The effect of his repeated recitation made me byheart the lines and I think I can rattle them off right now.

The monument was constructed by Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz(ya ya I know about all the contraversies surronding this theory, but lets not get into all that right now). So, Mumtaz had 14 children, 8 of which did not survive. The surviving 6 were 2 girls and 4 boys. Mumtaz asked Shah Jahan to promise her that he would not remarry when she died, he would look after her children and that he would build a monument to express his love for her which would be admired by the world. That is how the Taj is believed to have been made. It was begun 9 years after her death and took 22 years to complete. I am not going into the dates and events part, but it was fun listening to N posing tough questions to the guide about them. Architecturally, there are 22 dome like structes at the gates, indicating the number of years taken for construction. The number of steps at to the main structure was 22 again. The white marble was procured from Rajasthan and the semi precious stones ornamenting the beam were from various European countries. These apparently sparkle when the rays from the moon fall on them. The monument is generally open only during the day, but on full moon days, it is kept open till dusk, so that people can watch the splendor of the stones against the marble. The fees collected those days are without doubt multiple times that on normal days, but it is definitely worth. There are Arabic inscriptions along the beam and on the inside which have been written with black stone. They are written in such a way that the writtings on the bottom are small in size and those on top keep increasing in size, which gives a visual appearance of being of uniform size from top to bottom. Lot of beautiful carving and optical illusion can be seen around the main structure. The representation of the tombs of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan, who are believed to be burried there are present. There is a stairway underground where the actual tombs are but that chamber is not open to public. The four minarets outside the main dome are titled very negligably, but towards the outside. This was with the idea that in the unfortunate incident of an earthquake, if the minarets were to collapse, they would not fall on the main structure, but fall outward, thus protecting the main dome from natural calamity destruction. A mosque and a guest house build exactly like each other, swank the Taj on either side and were constructed to add to the aesthetics.

After the guide finished his recitation, we left him and moved on to go round the place on our own. We took turns to capture the angles on lense. Once we were satisfied with the snaps and we felt the heat had burnt our feet enough, we came out and headed to the meena bazar to purchase souveneir for our dear ones. We then headed back towards our car. Already lips were cracked, skin was burned, feet were scladed and eyes very smoky. Hair was covered with dust and we were almost dehydrated. N had kept insisting that I sip water every few minutes, and thats what kept me from succumbing to the heat. We then took the car and headed straight to Bikanerwala's on the highway for lunch. We had some roti, rajma, aloo dum, rice, curd, chilled lemonade and lots of ice water. This was followed by sweet paan and off we were. We were still planning to visit either Mathura or Vrindavan, when all of a sudden the board indicating Fatehpur Sikri caught our eyes. We decided to head there and see the architectural marvel this time and keep a religious visit for the next time. So we took the deviation from the national highway towards FS. A few miles we drove comfortably, until we came across a road block, a traffic jam, bad roads, craters, dead locked junctions, sweltering head and dust storms, all at once. Finally we followed a rural utility vehicle(term coined by N) into some village and took a round about way back to the main road. This deviation let to a lot of waste of time. And ultimately by the time we reached FS, it was 5:30 pm. We quickly looked around, and did not go exploring deep. We again had a good round of photography and then we headed back. It was begining to get dark, but there was no respite from the heat. Again as we neared the highway, we lost our way. And we had to keep asking the passerby's how to go out from there. We roamed around the intricate lanes of Agra for about an hour until we finally hit the highway. By now it was dark and we were worried about the headlights from the oncoming traffic. Thankfully it was not as bad as we expected.

A couple of tea breaks and N's collection of music cds, kept us going even though it was midnight. We reached Faridabad, but again lost our way trying to find the road to Gurgaon. Luckily, it being an auspicious day, there were lot of people returning from various weddings. So we found people to guide us the way. After a long and tiring drive later, we finally reached by 1 am. Monday morning blues had set in and it was the end of a wonderful day, inspite of all the minor irritants along the way, because of many - a - reason, the most important being that I had fulfilled my long time dream of seeing one of the seven wonders of the world. Ofcourse, the most pleasant part of any journey is the company of a good friend, so need I even mention how splendid this trip was?

 

Hey Roopa!
Thanks for your fb dear. Yeah it is indeed Wah Taj. Do visit.. but ya make sure you do so in winter. I was literally burnt alive!

 

Hi Chitra!
I feel so happy that you have been able to visit the Taj with me!!! Thank you so much!
Snaps I will put up but will take some time. The camera cable is at Bangalore. I will be returning this weekend and will put the pics up.

 

Dear Priya!! You made my day with your sweet fb! Thank you so much.
I will put up pics by this weekend sure.

 

Hey Priya!
Im glad I have motivated you more, to visit our very own Desi Wonder!!