Day 235: Agra
Today was a long anticipated day – the day we finally got to see India’s #1 attraction: the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal is widely acknowledged as the crowning achievement of Mughal architecture and is one of the most recognizable monuments in the world. Built in the mid-1600s by Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his wife (ahem, *third wife*) Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj is often referred to as a monument of “undying love” (a reputation the tourism board of India is playing up, by calling Agra “the city of romance”).
Even though Mumtaz was the king’s third wife, she was by far is favorite, probably because she was the most fertile. During 19 years of marriage, Mumtaz gave birth to 14 children (dying in childbirth of the last), seven of whom survived to adulthood and of those, four were boys (King Henry VIII would have been so jealous…). When she died, Shah Jahan was supposedly overcome with grief and immediately started constructing his magnum opus – the most beautiful mausoleum India has ever seen, or ever will see again. Mumtaz was interred in the exact center of the crypt in 1643 – a good 12 years after her death – and her husband joined her in 1666. The king’s sarcophagus is off to the left of Mumtaz – one of the only non-symmetrical aspects of the complex.
But what about the other wives, you say? They are all buried just *outside* the Taj Mahal, in red sandstone buildings. Neither of them produced any sons, so…burn.
What a stroke of good luck! We arrived in Agra on the first day of World Heritage Week, meaning admission to all UNESCO sites is FREE!
The only downside to free admission is that everyone and their mother wants to visit the monuments as well. Luckily for us, the Taj has a “High Value Ticket” Line (AKA – “Foreigners Only”) so we don’t have to wait long
The red-standstone Entry Gate to the Taj Mahal garden. In an effort to “blend in” and avoid getting hasseled for pictures with random Indian tourists, Lindsay decided to wear a headscarf all day today – it worked! Not a single person asked for a picture! Whether it’s beacause she was flying over their radar or because she looked so ridiculous people were avoiding her, we’ll never know…
Saving the best for last! After nearly two weeks in India we *finally* reach the pièce de résistance – the TAJ MAHAL
Boo! The Taj is undergoing restoration work on one of the minarets and the right wall – kinda ruins the symmetrical effect of the magnificent palace
We have to cover our boots with disposable booties in order to visit the inside of the mausoleum (not for religious purposes, but to help keep the white marble floors of the building looking clean!)
The Taj Mahal is decorated with beautiful floral designs and calligraphy. From far away it looks like paint, but when you get up close you can see the effect is made by millions of pieces of inlaid stones – each stone is hand-carved and glued into holes gouged out of the marble wall by hand. Over the years, some vandals have picked out some of the decorative stones to keep as souvenirs, so now security at the Taj is *extremely* tight to make sure no one brings in anything that could be used to damage the monument
The Yamuna River flows behind the Taj Mahal
The mausoleum is flanked by four decorative minarets – though they look perfectly straight from a distance, up close you can see they are leaning ever-so-slightly outwards – this imperfection was deliberately done, so that if there is ever an earthquake the pillars would fall *away* from the main building
A mosque and a faux-mosque sit to the west and east of the Taj (the faux mosque was built simply to provide esthetic symmetry to the complex – the building serves no other purpose)
We visit the fake mosque first, thinking it might be less crowded (nope – both are pretty much the same, although you don’t have to take your shoes off in the fake mosque) – since this building isn’t really used for anything, the interior isn’t kept up as well – we could some damage to the incised painting on the ceiling
We visited the mosque next, where we could easily spot the differences between the two interiors – the floor of the mosque is covered in rectangle outlines for worshippers to lay down their prayer rugs, and the western wall has a mihrab (an alcove that points toward Mecca)
TEN YEARS have gone by between these two pictures! And wouldn’t you just know it? I got another red pimple on my forehead.
After our visit to the Taj Mahal, we had just enough time leftover to visit the Agra Fort. The original red sandstone structure was primarily used by Akbar the Great as a military fort – when his great grandson Shah Jahan took the throne, he expanded it (using his favorite building material: white marble!) to include the royal palaces for himself and his queens. At the end of his life, he spent 8 years imprisoned in in the Agra Fort after his power hungry son Aurangzeb killed off his older brother and unseated his dad as emperor (kinda wishing Mumtaz hadn’t been so fertile now, am I right?).
After the British conquered India, they took over the Agra Fort and used it for their army barracks. While some of the fort has been reopened for tourists (mostly the palaces), over half of the complex is still used by the India Army today.
The open-air, sandstone Public Meeting Hall and the fancier, white marble Private Meeting Hall within the Agra Fort
View of the Taj Mahal from the Agra Fort – during his long imprisonment, Shah Jahan could see (but never visit!) the monument he built for his beloved wife
The interior of the king’s palace was once covered in painted frescos – one of the British viceroys started to restore the paintings in the early 1900s, but the work was quickly abandoned once he was transferred to a different region of India
The royal library in the Agra Fort has a “whispering wall” effect! Outside, the family courtyard is beautifully decorated with hand-carved red sandstone (although sections have been restored by machine/stencil)
Our final stop of the day (of the country!) was a storeroom/workshop where local artisans were producing inlaid stone marble . Like many of the artists we’ve met throughout our tour, these families have been involved in their craft for generations and were direct descendants from the original craftsmen who built the Taj Mahal. Everything in the shop was still made by hand, just like it was in the days of the Mughal empire.
Pietre dure – inlaid stone decoration – is an artistic specialty in Agra. We get to see a sample of floral designs – each petal is a separate, hand-carved & polished stone. Here Igor holds a miniscule flower bud, made of five pieces of stone!
Artisans at work: 1) sanding down each individual stone, 2) drawing an outline of the finished stone & then gouging out a fitted hole by hand, and 3) gluing each stone into the holes, one at a time
Our final night in India – cheers!