'A teardrop on the face of humanity'

Wednesday 9th April

- yes, the Taj Mahal!!
- Itmad-ud-Daulah (the 'Baby Taj')

5am. the expected but wholly unwelcome sound of the alarm clock heralded in what would be, by any possible measure, an extraordinary day.


we showered and had just enough time to examine our latest batch of unidentified and various non-mosquito bites before, on Colonel Lamba's advice, we managed to find one of only a handful of rickshaws available in our neighbourhood at 5:30am to take us to Shahjahan Gardens and walk very peacefully through the dawning light to the Taj Mahal's quieter West gate. the park was, surprisingly, very busy, full of morning exercises, yoga practitioners and families with children playing on the grass - rather different from the corresponding scene that you might encounter in one of the gardens' British counterparts at this hour of the morning.

arriving at the gate a few minutes before the 'dawn' opening time of 6am, thee were but a handful of other bleary eyed foreign tourists - 'vanilla-skinned,' to use an aphorism a Panharganj salesman had tossed our way. the tightest security we had seen in India - and conceivably the tightest we may see in our whole trip - unearthed the torch that some synapse miscommunication had told Edd to pack in a bag that we already knew could contain virtually nothing other than water and a camera plus batteries. but we were in.

irrespective of which of the three entrances you use, you emerge first into the Chowk-i-Jilo Khana, a red sandstone forecourt shielding any view of the Taj from expectant eyes, primarily through the use of a massive arched gateway crowned with domes and over-run with Qur'anic verses.


the gateway would be a destination in itself anywhere else in India, but this is Agra, where every bend in the River Yamuna has another monument to Mughal majesty, none more jawdropping than the Taj Mahal.

looking back to the Chowk-i-Jilo Khana's gateway

constructed on the orders of Shah Jahan, he of the Peacock Throne and central palaces of Agra Fort, the Taj Mahal is a mausoleum dedicated to his 'favourite' wife, who boasted the title Mumtaz Mahal. indeed, its name is merely a foreshortening of this, which means 'Chosen One of the Palace.' she died in 1631, giving birth to their 14th child together, even more impressive when you consider that he had many wives and of course concubines, imperial right circumventing the somewhat restrictive tenets of the Qur'an, which allows for only a maximum of four wives.


Kipling described the Taj Mahal as 'the ivory gate through which all dreams pass,' but we preferred Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore's description of it as a 'teardrop on the face of humanity.' in the gentle dawn light, the tomb - and you struggle to remind yourself that it is just that, a tomb - manages to be both mighty and yet soft and alluring. the early morning qualities of the Taj are well documented and it was almost in no time at all that coach parties began to arrive. however, the site and especially the mausoleum are so enormous that, save for good vantage points for the more ubiquitous of photographs, this hardly seems to matter.

at the distance you find yourself from the tomb on entering through the Chowk-i-Jilo Khana, the Taj sits resplendent at the end of the standard Mughal layout of four gardens (known as charbagh), rather than being placed in the middle as standard. Humayan's Tomb in Delhi has this normal layout, but if that had been next to a river, perhaps they would have changed that!


having seen the Delhi mausoleum first was a real bonus, as you could see the progression from that earlier construction to the Taj. the park-like gardens were larger, the walled ramparts on the West and East sides higher, the birdsong somehow more intense, the whole scene more enriching. but then, it is supposed to be an evocation of the afterlife, the four dissecting water courses symbolising the Qur'an's paradisic rivers of water, milk, wine and honey. the North / South channels do still contain water, throwing up perfect millpond reflections of the mausoleum. at the West and East ends, 'water palaces' continue the deliberate, perfect symmetry of the whole complex. one of them holds the Taj Museum but, as we were warned night happen, it had decided to close for no reason.

still, that was never going to be an issue when the most well known of the 'New' Seven Wonders of the World is right in front of you. 20,000 men toiled for more than twenty years to build it - quite frankly, we would not have been surprised if had taken them a century. from the central viewing area, where the tomb would normally be in a charbagh layout, the size of the Taj Mahal is already beginning to overwhelm. even at a distance now of around 100 metres, it fills the eyes, let alone a viewfinder, with its four minarets making it wider still. all decoration on the marble-faced Taj is either carved or inlaid. the Qur'anic script is visible even from the viewing platform, scurrying up the walls in inlaid black marble writing, perfectly flush with its white marble surrounds. the script even grows wider at the top so that it always appears to be the same size when viewed from below. by now, the famous dome had begun to catch orange hues from the sun, giving the whole structure a warm glow. to give you an idea of the scale in words, the dome alone is 55 metres high, fact fans.

at the viewing platform, half way there

it was still early enough to be peaceful at the world's most famous building. a delicate range of pastel shades was flickering over the mausoleum's surface, at times appearing slightly golden or even green, the strange dance of size, distance and colour we had seen from Agra Fort replicated and magnified. we decided to tour the tomb itself immediately, as shoes are not allowed and the marble would be uncomfortably hot by mid-morning.

notwithstanding its increasing might as we approached, we were fairly bamboozled by the size of the place when upon it.

The Taj Mahal - larger than expected! (early morning light)

(mid-morning light)

even later, when the crowds drew larger and the tours more numerous, the people seemed no bigger than swarms of brightly coloured ants. up close, you can see just how staggeringly intricate the carving and inlay is; it's stupendous.

inlaid carving detail

shadows and symmetry

if one is still not swooning at all before you by this point, the (no photography permitted) cenotaph in the middle of the tomb destroys any lingering resistance. the mausoleums' marble comes from Makrana in Western Rajasthan, but its decoration - inlaid onyx, amethyst, lapis lazuli, jade, mother or pearl, etc, etc, etc - was sourced from the entirety of Asia. we got lucky in that the interior was pretty empty when we entered, its walls bouncing the light of the rising sun through its almost translucent, carved marble lattice screens, making the inside glow as if lit from within. a few pigeons had managed to make it this far and it seemed inconceivable that they were not doves. the pietre dure inlay work, it came as no surprise to observe, the finest quality we had so far seen - extraordinary detailing to a scarcely feasible level, visually and emotionally breathtaking. many words in the English language are heavily overused, but the literal meanings of awesome and incredible certainly apply in this exquisite place.


we spent three hours and more touring the outside of the Taj, exploring its red sandstone mosque - a destination in itself, with its intricate carvings and heavy arches - and its replica jawab on the East side, two sturdy, palatial buildings further enhancing the complex's constant symmetry.

at the back of the Taj, looking along to the mosque (foreground) and Agra Fort (in the distance)

famous shadows

Philippa inside the mosque at the Taj Mahal

in fact, the only non-symmetrical item is Shah Jahan himself - buried next to his favourite, his tomb sits to one side, an ironic conclusion to his grandest building design.


afforded so much more time than the tours on tight schedules, we walked the full extent of the charbagh gardens, marvelling at the way the Taj's delicate colour phrasings of earlier had been replaced through pearl and ivory to a dazzling bright white under the punishing sun and thankful we had come as early as we did.




the River Yamuna crawled past in sluggish daze, almost dry, hazy with the heat and Agra's admittedly awful pollution.


a small boat ferried those with an interest to the other side from outside the complex, but the riverbank face had some scaffolding on it invisible from the others.


the gardens were quite lush and infused with mimosa, trees providing ample shade. no wonder that this place of wonders has been pulling people in irresistibly for over 450 years

bullock lawnmower, Taj Mahal

many a tour guide will tell you that the Shah spent his last days moping about Agra Fort, gazing wistfully downstream at his creation, in mourning for Mumtaz Mahal. refreshingly, this is codswallop. overthrown by his own son and imprisoned in his own palace in the Fort in significant luxury, he died at the highly impressive age for the time of 74. the cause of his demise was a massive overdose of opium and aphrodisiacs, so it seems he got over her in the end.

you can't re-enter the Taj without paying once again, and since it's a whopping R750 a go, the average visitor has to choose between dawn or dusk. the entry fee has been the cause of huge controversy - it's been much higher, but also virtually nil. however, the main reason for any disquiet is the fact that Agra is staggeringly polluted and no efforts appear to be being made to cut back on illegal factories or the chemical dumping that have, at least technically, been outlawed. from children sifting large garbage piles in and around the Kirini Bazaar to the city's 1700 polluting factories, it's a marvel that is chief attraction has not already been eroded away by man-made chemicals.

partly due to the need to reclaim Edd's highly unnecessary torch and also to explore, we walked down to the river bank on the East side via Taj Ganj, a small network of streets immediately South of the mausoleum complex. this was the most persistent place we had yet been for touts, but still nowhere near the levels Edd had been expecting. we walked along underneath the site's high East walls, massive bricks of red sandstone towering above.

corner battlement from the outside, walls of the Taj Mahal gardens

the military has a very overt presence in Agra - soldiers on an early morning run had accompanied our rickshaw and the end of our walk also had a presence. after one point, vehicles are not allowed and what touts there are vanish. the riverside area was deserted but for us and a few members of the Indian army, the boatmen trying to get us to cross the river, dogs and large numbers of pink-faced monkeys playing boisterously in the trees.


we craned our necks up at the mighty height of the Taj from our vantage point and revelled in our momentary seclusion.

after such feasts, resulting excitement - or possibly greed! - confirmed our decision to head several kilometres North and cross the river to Itmad-ud-Dalah. pronounced 'Artmar Dollar,' the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation emblematic of the difficulties we have had with Hindi, to the great amusement of many with whom we have spoken. it's often referred to as the 'Baby Taj,' which seems terribly unfair and an almost humiliating comparison for any building.

we had been warned that Agra's two highly congested and poorly maintained bridges were a challenge and so were grateful for a good rickshaw driver. when we had arrived in Agra, our pick-up driver's description of the three mandatory requirements for driving in India had been 'Good brakes; good horn; good luck!' - all were much in evidence here. buses, lorries, cows, schoolchildren, pedestrians, horse and bullock-drawn carts and (water) buffalo all vied for space, a smartly uniformed policeman giving directions lending the chaos a false air of structure.

after our visit to the Taj, anything else might reasonably have been considered to be a let down, yet Itmad-ud-Daulah was anything but.

Itmad-ud-Daulah, Agra

of a far more human size and almost deserted apart from a gaggle of local schoolchildren very keen to shake hands, its nickname seemed scarcely appropriate. more of a pavilion with four towers than a mini-Taj, it is placed in the centre of its charbagh, overlooking the Yamuna from the other side.


predating the Taj, it was the first ever marble-clad mausoleum the Mughals built and constructed as a tomb for the parents of one of the most powerful women of the age, Nur Jahan, who was politically and relatively linked to Shah Jahan.



the tomb is absolutely gorgeous, a little ivory trinket box with its outer walls quite covered in almost filigree marble lattices, pieta dura everywhere.





it doesn't have a dome, just a rooftop structure, again laden with carvings and inlay. to our surprise, we both thought that its exterior was possibly more varied and at least comparable to if not more impressive than that of the Taj.





interior was not of the same quality, but still certainly worth a look.

interior ceiling detail, Itmad-ud-Daulah, Agra

its gardens - and one of its four surrounding pavilions - overlook the Yamuna. at a very low level, people were growing subsistence crops on its silty middle, while naked children played in the river mud, its banks thick with garbage. enough buffalo to constitute a large herd paddled in the shallows beneath one of Agra's traffic-choked bridges, strange contrasts to the intricate beauty of the gardens in which we stood.




finally home, another afternoon resting and sheltering from the sun followed. [Edd - perhaps it was the effect of the Taj or the culmination of my time here so far, but for the first time on an afternoon in India, all I wanted to do was relax and reflect.] again the contrasts, the sights we had seen; the mentally handicapped boy selling mini-Taj trinkets; the man walking his obstinate camel along the narrow streets of Taj Ganj; the lumbering bullock-cart lolling along and blocking our rickshaw's way; the fact that so many men here dye their hair with henna, leaving it anything from a bright chestnut to tangerine; the poor dog who's immobile legs were crippled to the extent that they may as well have been stuffed; the little lizards running aimlessly around the walls of our room and back again; the setting sun sinking down into the evening haze of dusk, or the choking smog, or possibly a combination of the two.


over dinner, we spoke to a young Australian girl who had had a completely different experience to the women with her family we had met the night before, both of who's itineraries differed greatly from ours. this is truly huge country, rife with possibilities and stuffed with treasures.

we are both healthy (again) and happy with this wonderful country.

love

edd & philippa {:-)