The Taj Mahal

Despite this being my fifth visit to India, not to mention Subash's whole childhood taking place here, neither of us had ever been to see the Taj Mahal.

We almost didn't this time either, as it meant hiring a car and driver for the day to take is the three hours from Delhi to Agra and then back again. We finally decided to just go for it, and met our driver in the early hours of the morning and headed off. We stopped for breakfast along the highway and I had an aloo paratha with yogurt, pickle, and a giant pat of butter.

The driver wanted us to hire someone he knew as a guide. I'm not normally big on guides, mainly because I am anti-social, but we finally relented. It worked out pretty well because, besides the good information on the Taj itself, he knew all of the best places to stand and pushed crowds around to get us better photos. The only regret with him is we probably would have spent more time just lounging around enjoying the setting on our own.

Our guide, Rashid, bought our tickets and led us through the lines. For Indian citizens, it is only 20 rupees (~40 cents USD), and for foreigners it is 750, or about $12. 

Because of the walls surrounding the grounds, you don't really see the Taj Mahal until you are right in front of that. Before that, you are dodging people asking for money, turning down camel rides, having your bags searched, and wondering if it is worth it. And then,

I had thought there was no way the Taj Mahal could be as good as everyone said it was. There was just no way. 

Imagine my surprise!! It was absolutely incredible, glowing there in the morning sun.

As you must know, the Taj Mahal is an elaborate tomb built by King/Sultan Shah Jahan in the 1600s for his "favorite" wife, Mumtaz Mahal. I looked her up later and learned she was originally named Arjumand Banu Begum, but renamed after marriage when she was 19. I was originally skeptical of her status as favorite wife, and my first draft of this post wrote: "This wife is the favorite, as far as I can tell, because she had children, and was super hot." In fact she had 14 children in 19 years, and died at only 39 while in childbirth with the last one. I asked where the other two wives are buried and got basically, "meh," in reply. I have since done some more research and it seems that Arjumand and Shah Jahan really were partners, especially for that time. She traveled with him frequently, and his other two marriages, which had taken place before this one, were pretty much in name only. I still don't know what I think of the whole thing. 

So the supposed "romance" of the place is a little lost on me, but not the incredible stunning beautiful construction, the scientific marvel of its symmetry, and the fact that it was all done before the invention of cranes.

The facade is covered with stone inlays, with stones brought from all over the world. The front has a prayer in Arabic written in black onyx, and stone flowers twist up and down the sides.

The labor involved is just staggering.

Our guide took us to see how the stone inlays were made. This turned out to be a marble table sales pitch in disguise, but still totally worth seeing. The work these guys do is incredible.

They cover the white marble in an orange mehndi dye first, so when they carve into it they can see the lines they are making. Then they carve very carefully to make indents for the stonework. They let us try, and the marble is incredibly hard.

The stones are cut into tiny pieces to fit together into leaves and flowers. The pieces are tiny. The flower above has 16 pieces, and the little stem of it has 10. To make leaves they have two pieces on the sides and then one needle-size middle piece doe the center stem. All of the stones are cut on wheels moved by hand.

Every Friday the Taj Mahal is closed and these guys and 100 others descend to clean it and replace any stones that have been pried out by greedy tourists.

After the demonstration we were led to a show room where, what are the chances, they had souvenirs for sale to match any budget! We didn't mind, though, because the work was so incredible to look at. Subash told the guy upfront, "we can't afford any of these things, I don't want to waste your time and efforts," but they pressed on anyway ("if you buy something I am happy, if you not buy I am also happy") so we sat as amazing marble tabletops were sat before us. The prices for these started around $300, but if you have that money it would be worth it. 

Maybe someday!

When it became clear we weren't going to buy anything there they led us through a series of cheaper and cheaper rooms, I think five in all. The marble pieces got smaller and smaller, and then were abandoned altogether in favor of key chains and Taj Mahal magnets. 

The guide wanted to take us to a restuarant for lunch, but we were afraid of what it would we up beind--something expensive, something with ulterior motives--so we just headed home. 

As we were driving I took photos, and we stopped to watch a game of gully cricket. We bought a bicycle tube so I could learn to make a cricket ball from it the way Subash used to as a child.

When we were almost out of town we realized our guide had never given us our tickets in to the Taj Mahal. But my book! All of the things I have collected and pasted in, and this I forget! Besides that the ticket is basically made to be a keepsake, with a giant photo of the Taj Mahal on it. We were so sad as the car took us further and further away. Finally we decided we would never be any closer to getting it back than we were right then, so we called up the guide and told him we were coming back to get the tickets from him.

We drove back and were met by a different person, who gave us a different pair of tickets that had been stamped from a visit a few days before. Our guide had "gone home," so this was the closest approximation. We didn't mind that they weren't "ours," just glad to have some, when we noticed along the bottom of the ticket that the entry to the Taj Mahal we had payed for also gets you in to four or five other local sites that same day. Our guess is that they take the tickets from the people who are only going to the Taj Mahal and resell them to take people in to the other sites, hence our guides withholding them and sudden disappearance along with our tickets from that day itself. Maybe we are wrong, maybe he really did just go home. Either way, if they aren't doing that they should start, it's a good idea.

So we drove out again, happy with our replacement tickets, heading into the sunset and home. On the way we stopped at one of the restaurants on the highway. We were planning to eat with our driver and get him some dinner, so when he went to the bathroom we went in the restaurant to wait for him. We waited and waited but he never came. Finally we ordered, and ate, and he never arrived. When we were finished we called him to see where he was, and found out he was eating in a different area behind the building specifically for "drivers."

We asked him about it back in the car and were appalled to find out that the restaurants on that highway actually won't let the drivers in. They are forced to eat somewhere out behind the place, and if they try to go in the building the people who work there will actually kick them out. It's segregation. We were horrified, even more so when we learned that he could have come in if we were with him, as we could have insisted, but alone he didn't stand a chance.

It was awful, and we felt awful. Apparently not all highways are like this, but this one was privately built and has this rule. 

It was a day of extremes, for sure. From the beauty of the Taj Mahal to the terrible classism on the road.

Like India itself, I suppose, and like life, a melting lot of every experience. We were partly exhilarated from what we had seen, partly exhausted from trying to fend off sellers and scammers, and deeply sad at our unwitting continuation of a racist system that treats some people like they are animals.