So we set off from Jaipur to our next stop – the city of
Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Ever since we had first thought about doing our
elective in India over a year ago, the Taj Mahal had been something that we had
wanted to see, so we were quite excited about this almost being a reality!
The day that we arrived in Agra, it was chucking it down.
However, being British and not so easily deterred we set off for Agra fort. It
reminded us quite a bit of the Red Fort in Delhi which was unsurprising as it
was built by the same man. Shah Jahan was the fifth Mughal Emperor of India and
he ruled from 1628 to 1658. Incredibly, as well as these two forts he also
built the Taj Mahal along with the Jama Masjid in Delhi (the biggest mosque in
India) and a few other more minor buildings. His son, Aurangzeb, locked him up
as soon as he became ill so that he could seize the throne. He was imprisoned
in Agra fort and, so the stories go, he died looking at his beautiful creation,
the Taj Mahal, in the distance.
The fort was beautiful and had within it some very intricate
carvings, particularly in the red sandstone buildings. The marble buildings
were also very striking, and in some areas the marble was so thin that when the
sun was behind it, the light caused the marble to glow.
 |
| Some of the ornate carving in the fort. |
 |
| The thin marble, glowing with the sun behind it. |
Utterly soaked, and now in the middle of a thunderstorm, we
had a quick look at the Jama Masjid in Agra (unsurprisingly there was no one
else there!) before finding somewhere to dry off!
By some miracle and in defiance of the weather forecast, the
next morning was dry! This was the day we had been waiting for, and just before
sunrise we made the short walk from our hotel to pay our money and queue up in
eager anticipation to see the Taj Mahal.
When finally through the security checks and queues, we
walked up to the main gate, and stepping through got our first glimpse of the
incredible building. All the reports we had heard had not been exaggerated. It
was utterly breath-taking. It was as if it had been put there by a giant hand
reaching down from the skies - it felt almost like it was not of this world.
Emma now knew what her great aunt (who had been a missionary in Calcutta for
many years) meant when she said “It just hangs out of the sky”. Rabindrath Tagore, India's Nobel
laureate described it as 'A teardrop on the face of eternity', whilst Rudyard Kipling went for 'the embodiment of all things
pure'. Emperor Shah Jahan himself said it made 'the sun and the moon shed tears
from their eyes'.
Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in memory of his third wife
Mumtaz Mahal who died whilst giving birth to their 14th child. The
whole complex was completed in 1653 and took the work of thousands of men.
 |
| The first glimpse of the Taj Mahal. |
Spellbound, we walked slowly up to
the building and took of our shoes so that we could go inside. Up close, you
can see the incredible marble inlay work which is made up of over 35 different
types of precious and semiprecious stones, laid in beautiful patterns within
the marble. There is also beautiful calligraphy around the entrance to the
mausoleum itself, and the writing actually gets bigger towards the top so that
from the ground it all looks the same size. Inside, the beauty continued. There
were two tombs in the centre – one for Mumtaz Mahal and one for Emperor Shah
Jahan who was later buried here alongside his wife. These are actually fake
tombs, with the actual bodies buried underneath the main mausoleum. The two
tombs are surrounded by an exquisite marble screen which has beautiful lattice
work and is covered in more marble inlay. Incredibly this huge screen is carved
out of one piece of marble.
Back outside of the Taj, we could
visit the two buildings that flank the marble mausoleum – both in complete
symmetry. The building to the west is the mosque, however the identical one on
the east is not a mosque as it faces the wrong way, but was actually just built
for symmetry and is called the jawab.
By this point the sun was fully up
and incredibly the Taj had changed colour slightly. Apparently because marble is
translucent, the Taj looks slightly different colours depending on the light.
Emma then spent a while taking photos, and got the photo that she had dreamt of
being able to take for a long time.
 |
| THE photo! |
 |
| Us at the Taj Mahal! |
We eventually dragged ourselves
away from the most beautiful building in the world, but not for too long, as we
went to grab some breakfast on a rooftop café with a pretty spectacular view!
 |
| Breakfast with a view! |
We spent the rest of the day
seeing a few of the other sights around Agra including the first Mughal gardens,
a tomb for a poet and his brother who was the man who had done the calligraphy
around the Taj, and the tomb known as “The Baby Taj” (which is actually called
the Tomb of I'timād-ud-Daulah). You can see how it got its name! This was also covered in
marble inlay work, which although was beautiful, was a lot more chunky and less
refined than the examples we had seen on the Taj.
 |
| The Baby Taj |
 |
| Close up on an example of the inlay work |
The last stop of the day was the
Mehtab Bagh, a park on the other side of the Yamuna River to the Taj Mahal, but
built to line up perfectly with it. From here, you were far enough away that
you could see the full effect of the Taj with the mosque and the jawab on
either side. It was absolutely stunning.
 |
| The Taj as viewed from Mehtab Bagh |
Whilst in Agra, we did a few other
things including a day trip to Fatehpur Sikri, a town close to Agra which is
home to a huge palace complex and apparently the world’s tallest gate! The
palace complex was indeed massive, and was composed of a great deal of
buildings. One of our favourites was one that reminded us of a tiered wedding
cake overlooking some lovely gardens. The Emperor would sit on the very top tier
whilst his many ladies would be taking the air on the layers below.
 |
| The tiered building |
Unlike a lot of the other places
we had visited, this was lacking in the typical Mughal symmetry. It felt much
more like it had grown up over time, with bits added here and there. We had
been spoilt by visiting a lot of buildings and complexes designed in perfect
symmetry and started getting annoyed that arches didn’t line up!
 |
| The palace complex |
Before setting off for Varanasi,
we managed to squeeze in one last thing and visited Akbar’s Mausoleum. Akbar
the Great, was the third Mughal Emperor and was apparently one of the greatest
Emperors of his time, although we are yet to discover why! His mausoleum was a
beautiful place, with a stunning gateway. Inside, the incredible decoration
gave the effect of a beautiful patchwork quilt lining the walls and ceilings.
However, interestingly, unlike all the other tombs, when you got into the room
where the tomb actually was, it was completely plain. The walls were painted
white, the tomb itself was block white and the only other thing in the room was
a solitary metal lamp hanging down from the ceiling. Such contrast to the tombs
in the Taj Mahal!
 |
| Outside Akbar's Tomb. |
 |
| The amazing decoration inside. |
No comments:
Post a Comment