The Lies of Agra
Part three of India Update Madness.
A half day bus trip took us from Ajanta to Jalgaon, an apparently prosperous transit hub in the center of india. The confluence of several lines at the rail junction probably contributes to their relative affluence. An afternoon train and sixteen hours later we arrived to Agra Cantontment. My greatest fear on these overnight trains is always that of sleeping through our stop - .5 mg of zanax made this concern a reality. our indian berthmates woke us just as the train was rolling out, and i grabbed what i could while adam struggled to disengage his tied-up pack. to my horror, as i turned back towards the train one of our helpful friends threw my backpack (containing laptop and the camera) out the door from the now moving train...it arced through the air before slamming into the concrete platform. a testament to sony quality, there was no damage to either.
thus we headed into the old city of Agra, Imperial capital of the Mughals, or alternately: the Ninth Level of Tourist Hell.
what a difference a day makes. a 20 hours travel north and it was freezing again.
our hotel had a rooftop restaurant featuring "taj view." they are going to need some laws soon regulating rooftop construction because every establishment is throwing up something on their roof and calling it "rooftop restaurant"
our waiter had morning slingshot duty (to pelt the other city inhabitants, the monkeys)
hmmm...which guidebook could they possibly be referring to? a place in agra with great eats and something of an establishment is Joney's. always packed. after a lonely planet staffer misidentified the knock off "JoinUs" down the alley and put it in the latest rev of the book, joney's is empty. the power they wield to make and break people, business and towns is remarkable. the faithfulness of their adherants is sad.
we stopped to talk to this man in my endless pursuit to unload 3,000 pakistani rupees i forgot to dump at the black market at Wagah Border. he couldn't help me either (nobody would touch it as the two nations were near open war) but became very animated when discussing his beloved chicks
isnt that special?
empathy and care of animals seems tied to prosperity and wealth. very few people have "pets" in this part of the world as maintaining and feeding yourself is often a challenge. there is definitely money in agra.
"So what's the deal with the goat in the blanket?"
"Zis liddle goat...he no feeel so goot...mebbe he haf cold"
passing through a back alley looking for some fresh samosas, i heard an unmistakable siren song. We followed the sweet synthesized tones of Super Mario to the source. the kids were more then ready to let me play until the fat one (probably a brahman and owner of the unit) demanded some rupees, at which point we left in disgust.
many weddings in agra, their processions pass through the streets day and night. the groom here cannot possibly see through that much festivity.
for every procession there is a rented marching band and the obligatory party machine
in the early 1990s, it could no longer be ignored that the Taj Mahal, surrounded by industrial Agra, was turning from brilliant white to turd brown. when Bill Clinton came to visit in 2000, a big show was made of their electric cars and pollution preventing technology. I'm unsure what SPM is, but they better get it under control.
In the afternoon we embarked on the proper tour of Agra. That is to say the tour most visitors experience. The guides of this tour are aggressive touts and deceptive drivers, while the sites are no more then curio shops manned by misrepresentative merchants. I found a rickshaw driver who would talk straight chicken with us. He explained that he would get a small commission for delivering us to any shops, plus a percentage of anything we bought. We made him understand we had no intentions of buying anything, and he was okay with that if we paid for the petrol.
our first stop was at one of the hundreds of marble inlay craft centers. They all claim to be descendants of families that worked the original taj construction, and now contractually responsible for its restoration. they also teach students the craft thus improving their lives and continuing the tradition. they all do happen to have a little shop, though it is an unnecessary afterthought as they make so much money from their government contracts. along with this story however, they all provide an entertaining show demonstrating the process of creating the marble inlay with semi-precious stones and its history.
This guy suspected that this wasn't my first time doing this, but i was careful not to blow my cover while having some fun with him, anticipating and beating him to some of his lines.
on queue, his wordless assistant hoisted the wrapped marble tabletop to accompany his bosses explanation that the weight was no problem because they could ship it anywhere. Just read this letter sent by a happy customer from Oklahoma! Then leave us your credit card number.
Our next stop a carpet store featured a lovely demonstration of persian carpet weaving, a process which can take a year or two per rug. his sweater matched his demo carpet. each little strand on the demo carpet, a tourist who has sat through their presentation. he told us he could not make one that flew, so we left.
After a final stop at the Jeweler, we had our driver drop us at the Agra Fort to get our mandatory fort experience.
another day, another unesco world heritage site, another five bucks....
the end
oh, and then there is the taj
through the magic of photoshop i have made it white again
adam went the next day with the camera to see it. when i had been here in November of 2000 with terry, they had just started charging foreigners $20 to see the Taj. We arrived in Agra on the first day of this, "World Heritage Day" and all sites were free. The merchants of the city have taken it to the supreme court, as people now just blow through agra for an afternoon visit instead of staying for several days to return to the Taj multiple times.
the greatest architectural extravagance of mughal emperor Shah Jahan (agra was the capital of the empire), the taj mahal was built to house the body blah blah blah...it pretty much bankrupted the wealthy empire and Jahan was eventually overthrown by his son Aurengzeb and imprisoned up the river in the agra fort (Jahan was planning to build a much more expensive BLACK marble twin on the other side of the river for his own mausoleum)
these students seem satisfied
get yer picture in front
it is impressive, if cliche. looks kool with a bunch of scaffolding.
the detailed work of the inlaid mosaics is admittedly phenomenal, you can run your finger along it four centuries later and still not feel any seams. the military had a bunch of plastic ready nearby, with which they planned to "camouflage" the structure in case those pernicious pakistanis should fly over and try to bomb it. Right.
