The Taj Mahal
Trip Start
Feb 07, 2007
1
33
50
Trip End
May 15, 2007
Agra,
India
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
At Agra Fort with the Taj in the distance
. Sometimes there were sacrifices on my part, and frequently sacrifices on theirs. More than I can remember, and even far more than I'm aware of. All for me. All so that I could grow up and become who I am and go on this voyage around the planet, from the ghetto in Puerto Rico to the Amazon in Brazil to the skies of South Africa and then to the Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world. Because of them, I got to stand in front of it today. I got to see it for real. I got to touch it. I got to get photos in front of it, real photos and not ones where they superimpose your picture in front of it. I watched the sun rise over it. I got to spin in circles with my arms spread out in the courtyard between the mausoleum and mosque across from it. I got to stand before it, holding hands with my roommate, and weep. All because of the teamwork of my family. It would have been insensitive not to cry. We received our wake-up calls at 5:15 and were on the bus by 5:45. It took less than five minutes to drive from our hotel to the entrance to the Taj, a gate at the side of a roundabout. The bus dropped us off right at the entrance, so we didn't have to worry about crossing the traffic until later. We walked down a street, one that reminded me of Poet's Lane in Central Park, but a little more rough around the edges. The sun was still low, not yet risen, so the morning mist made everything a bit fuzzy, a little bit more magical
Just spectacular
. Children had gotten an early start selling bracelets, key chains, and chess boards, and they are relentless. They stand along the sides of the road, waiting for people, and once they spot you good luck trying to get them to leave you alone. They come up to you and offer you their goods to you, their friend, and offer you a special price that they made for you. Rs 500, Rs 400, Rs 600 for these things. You say no, the price goes down or you get more pens or another bracelet for the same price. "Six bracelets, 500 Rupees Miss. 500, very good price." "No, thank you." "Okay, okay. 500 Rupees." "Not interested," walking away. They follow. "Very good price, very good, Miss." Still saying no? They try 450. The only way to get them to leave you alone is to ignore them, which is hard to do when they're young children. They know how to appeal to your sympathetic side, but once you buy from one, you're pegged and attract them all. So you turn them away. We walked about a half mile before rounding a corner for the final stretch, and within a few hundred feet I caught my first glimpse of the Taj. The dome towering over the buildings along the street we walked on. It was faded, dark in the haze against a light gray sky. We went through security, Katie, Lauren and I standing in the women's line, and were felt up as we passed through the metal detectors. We entered another walkway between the mosques that surround the Taj on all four sides, in perfect proportion. Our excitement heightened as we got closer and closer to the Taj, and as usual I squealed with glee when the entire structure came into view, framed by the arched entrance to the courtyard
Perspectives
. Before we even got to the stairs that led us down to the courtyard, Katie and I held hands and just stared. There it was, and there we were, right in front of it. For a few minutes we couldn't move, didn't want to move. We were standing in front of the Taj freakin' Mahal, so what more could we want than to stand where we were and look at it? People kept bumping into us, trying to get down the stairs and to the bench to take pictures, so we descended for a place in line to take pictures on the bench with the Taj in the background. We gave our cameras to friends but professional photographers took our pictures as well, whether we wanted them to or not. I posed for Katie and went to get up, but these photographers would yell at you to not move because they hadn't gotten the shot yet. You get used to standing up for yourself really quickly in India unless you want to turn into a doormat. I didn't want a professional photo, and I got up mid-picture, which ticked him off, but I'd told him I didn't want one so if he wanted to waste film on photos he knew I wasn't going to buy, that was his business. Katie and I then made our way through the quad towards the Taj, stopping every few feet to take pictures- self-portraits of ourselves and us together, perspective pictures (squishing it between our fingers, holding it on our heads), and the pink light of the sunrise reflecting off of the marble. We took our time getting up to the Taj to go in, just enjoying it, taking it all in. Lauren had disappeared with James, so Katie and I stuck together, holding on to each other in awe and disbelief as we walked along the Redstone path towards the stairs leading up to the entrance to the mausoleum
Sunrise
. You had to either remove your shoes or put on booties to go inside, so Katie and I got our booties because neither of us were wearing socks, and up the stairs we went towards the door in the marble archway. People approached us, trying to give us informal tours for money, so we listened politely until we could ditch them and walk around the inside ourselves. The elaborate marble coffins laid in the middle, with inlaid stones brought in from China, Egypt, Italy, and other countries, and the actual bodies laid underneath the floor. Because of the perfection of the geometry, the inside echoed loud and long, and the self-appointed guides whistled and hooted to demonstrate. I wanted to sing, or listen to someone else sing because it would have sounded incredible with the acoustics, but obviously singing in a crypt is inappropriate, regardless of the whistling and the shuffling through of thousands of people. After about ten minutes we went back outside to take more pictures. It was nearly ten minutes to seven by now, and we had to be at the bus by seven but we ran to the mosque on the left to take pictures from the corner, looking at it as the sun rose, now reflecting bright yellow light. Another man approached us, telling us where to take our pictures, to come here to this specific point. We're fine here, we'd say but no, no, you take picture from here. Mom won't make it to the Taj because she wouldn't respond well to the third world, and Dad will never make it because the people stalk and tell you what to do, where to go, what to buy
Three girls and the Taj
. Not their style. But I tried really hard to relax and enjoy it, appreciate it as helpful tips and hints. I got better as the day went on, and better at handling them. When we finished our final flurry of picture-taking from in front of the mosque, standing wherever we chose to stand to the discontent of our picture-tip man. Even though we ignored him, he still asked for money. I walked away, but Katie got out a dollar to give him. It was seven by this point so we ran towards the front gate to meet our group, stopping a couple times to look back at the beauty of the Taj. I didn't get sentimental yet because I knew I was going to get to come back later in the afternoon, which I was grateful for. An hour wasn't enough time, even if we did get to see the sun rise over it. Me, I need to have a few moments right before something ends, or I have to leave. For a minute or so, I clear my mind of everything except the fact that, it's the last few minutes of 2006 or I'm enjoying my ice cream or I'm looking at the Taj Mahal. I savor it at the very end. Luckily, I didn't make us any later by standing and savoring because we were going back later. So we ran. We ran past the metal detectors at the front entrance and fought off more children who had come out with the sun to sell us their junk. We made it back to the very front and couldn't find the bus at first, but realized we had to cross the street to get to it. Us girls had to cut in front of the busses and rikshaws and motorcycles to get to the bus. It was like trying to cross the street at Columbus Circle without any sort of stoplights to slow the stream of traffic. Any chance you get, you go. There's only a few second window, so you haul while you can. I'm really pleased that all of us made it through the entire trip without any damage done by transportation vehicles. We went back to the hotel for breakfast before starting our morning tour of the Lost City and Fort Agra. We drove about an hour outside of Agra to get to the Lost City, a sandstone fort that we got to wander for an hour. We were warned on the bus to simply go and take pictures where we want to and not heed the advice of the people hanging around, claiming to be students. I didn't think that would be a problem, but I was in for a big surprise. We walked through a gate onto a large lawn quad, where we received some historical background before we were turned loose to explore and fend off the "students" who swarmed us. We went through the main gate and saw countless men scattered about, standing and waiting to come up to us. They watched each other, making sure that they weren't going up to unaccompanied tourists, so we didn't have two and three "students" coming up to us at any one time, but Katie and I always had at least one person following us around, pointing out specific buildings and directing us to areas with good photo opportunities. Sounds helpful right? Well, not exactly. Katie and I were first approached outside the main entrance, being told to turn around and take a picture of the gates, come over here and get it from this angle, then okay turn back around and take a picture of the sandstone columns from here, this spot right here. No, not there, five feet ahead and two steps to the left. I mean, are you kidding me? Is seven steps really going to make a difference to my picture? No. And there's nothing you can do to get them to leave you alone. Even when you try to escape them by getting lost in the maze of the rooms of the fort, they'd search for you. They tell you they want to talk to you to practice their English with you, but when all they say is "Here, you take a picture here," over and over again, they blow their cover. "No, no, not there. You come take a picture from here, I show you." I tried really hard not to get aggravated by them, to appreciate the information about the specific buildings, but I really just wanted to explore it myself and take pictures from where I wanted to take them. And when the voice of your tour guide echoes in your head, telling you to avoid these people, any inkling you have to try and listen to them fades away. So half of our time was spent escaping the "students" who popped up everywhere to follow you, guide you around. And they weren't shy. They'd take your arm and escort you unless you physically shook them off. I had to remove hands from my forearm multiple times that were trying to guide me here or there. After that I quit feeling at all bad about running away from them, because I don't care how different your culture is from mine, you don't drag people around and expect to get paid for it. We ran around playing tourists for the rest of the time, and got a little bit lost towards the end, which was bad on so many levels. For one, we had five minutes to get to the bus and we didn't know the way to the entrance. Secondly, we had two men telling us that we couldn't go for five more minutes because we had to see this section and not to worry because we didn't need to be on the bus yet. Apparently, they knew better than we did what time we needed to be on the bus and more than that, if we were late it wasn't a big deal. I swear even when you yell at these people and are forceful with them, they still keep trying. But then again, maybe they really did want to practice their English so they would be able to understand us when we told them to leave us alone and that we weren't interested. Finally, because they didn't care about our own desires and need to get back to the bus, we couldn't ask them for directions to the front because we couldn't trust they'd tell us the right way to go. So we just chose a path to take and ran into some other SAS students who knew where they were going, so we tagged along with them. We spent another hour getting back to the hotel for lunch, and I think that drive was the scariest one of my entire stay in India. We saw a truck that had overturned trying to pass another vehicle. This road isn't more than two lanes wide, one lane for both directions of traffic, and every vehicle tries to pass each other. Our bus passed vans, motorcycles, a rikshaw or two, cars, and other busses. I've never been in a vehicle that has come so close to hitting oncoming traffic, and it happened more than once. You think Manhattan is flooded by the sound of honking, but no place in the world will you hear more honking than in India. And that's because they all try to pass each other. What kind of driver pulls a tour bus into oncoming traffic to pass a bicycle, or a truck hauling hay? And the people sit on top of these bails of hay so that they're eye to eye with us and could laugh at our shocked faces. This time, not looking really was the best way to handle it. We had lunch at the hotel and finished early so we could have some time to pop over to the shopping center with an internet café. Apparently this store is quite popular with the SAS voyages because the owner noticed me looking at pictures of him with young people my age and pulled out numerous photo albums of pictures he'd taken with SASers. He also showed me letters that students from past voyages had written for future voyagers, telling us how helpful the staff was and how great the shop was. The owner took a picture with me and asked me to write a letter, which I did. He asked me to write down my phone number, but I gave him an email address, and he said he'd email me. He also asked me to take one of his cards so I could send him a postcard. I did, and got in line to wait for a computer because the internet café was inside this shop, and students got to use it for free. I was waiting for my buddy Bob's computer, and the owner asked if he was my boyfriend. I said no, and he asked if I had one at all. When I answered no again, he told me that he'd be my boyfriend in India, and that if I couldn't find one back in the States that I could go back to India for him. I laughed and thanked him, and he asked me what I wanted from his store. I didn't really want anything, but started browsing because time was running out or me to use the computer, so I went to see what Katie and Lauren were looking at. Lauren had found some Darjeerling tea, which I wanted, and my new boyfriend tried to give it to me for free because he kept winking at me and looking at my box of tea, but I think he got nervous because one of his employees was selling Lauren her tea at the same time, so he charged me for it. I started feeling awkward so I told him it was time for us to go and we got back on the bus for our visit to Agra Fort. This was the epitome of the experience of India, right outside of the gates of the fort. As soon as you get off the bus, kids swarm you. I thought I'd been swarmed before by two and three kids trying to sell me things, but I was so naïve. Five, six, seven, eight people- men and kids (always males)- shoved their arms into my face. They were selling whips, bracelets, the same key chains, postcards, chess sets, and a gazillion other things. I fended off everyone except for the kid selling bracelets. He followed me halfway to the gate, starting at 500 rupees, then down to 400, then 300, regardless of how many times I was saying no. At first I was entirely too nice when declining. I started with "No, thank you" before changing to "I'm not interested, thank you." When he dropped the price from five to four, I dropped the thank you. "Please miss, it's a very good price," he'd say, as I struggled through the masses of people to get away. "I'm sure it is, but I don't want them" I'd say. "Okay, then, 350," he said. By this point I quit saying anything about the bracelets and started telling him to just leave me alone. Lauren and James were long gone in the crowds and my little stalker had managed to corner me, so Katie grabbed my hand and yanked me away and we started running and pushing to get through. It's just a non-stop verbal battle as they knock down the prices and you say no in every way you can possibly think of. They told us to simply walk away in logistical preport but even that didn't work because they follow you. The security guards at the entrance was my saving grace because they don't let the vendors into the fort. The next hour was quite peaceful, what with the absence of "students", people hanging around telling you where to take pictures, and vendors. Katie and I had a blast and made quite a spectacle of ourselves, running around taking tons of silly pictures all around the fort, from framing the Taj in the distance with our hands shaped into hearts to holding up our fingers to making it look like we were spinning the dome of the sandstone mosque like a basketball. Or maybe we were just a spectacle because we were white girls. A few groups of people, all different Asian ethnicities, asked to take pictures with Katie and I, and when we walked away they opined at the color of her hair. When we stopped by the prison cell where the emperor had been imprisoned by his own son for spending all of the family's money on building the Taj Mahal, I bumped into a small Indian woman. She didn't glare or frown, but kept her lips in a thin line as she bore her eyes into me for the half second before I begged her pardon and apologized. Saying those few words brought a smile to her face, and she asked me where I was from. When I said America, she smiled again, which also surprised me. I thought saying American would cause her to scrutinize me again so I quickly apologized once more, and she chuckled and bowed, her hands in prayer form in front of her chest. It's absolutely amazing how much of a difference an apology can make and how much better people respond to you when you acknowledge your mistake to them. But I can't really blame her for her assumption; I naturally hold doors for people at home and I'm always shocked if one person says thank you. So pass it on. Say thank you. It helps. We spent about an hour altogether at the fort then went back to the bus. Well, okay, tried to get back to the bus. The walk from the gates to the bus was even more of an adventure than making it inside the fort from the bus. Katie had heard one of the vendors offer five bracelets for 100 rupees, so we decided if we could talk them down to it we'd buy them to give as gifts. They're little copper bracelets supposedly inlaid with camel bone, the thinner bangles with pure white bone and the thicker bangles with blue and white and revealing copper in the shapes of elephants. Nothing special, but fun and Bohemian for college girls. We were bombarded again and fended everyone except for three vendors, and this time I let loose. One was trying to sell us whips, and I asked him what I would possibly want it for, which was a huge mistake because he smacked it on the ground right in front of me, almost hitting me, which terrified me and pissed me off. I flat out yelled at him to leave me alone, which he did. The bracelet men, somewhere in their thirties, started out at the usual 500. We said no and one went down, the other staying at 500. The 500 man shoved his bracelets right in front of my face and I turned at him, asking him why I'd want to buy his for 500 when his friend right next to me would sell it for 400. He then went down to four, and then 350 when a third man with bangles came over and said something about 50 rupees. I could have heard wrong because it was incredibly loud, all the screaming and yelling over each other, but when the other two glared at him and started yelling "No 50, you no offer for 50" I knew I'd heard right. And yet, they still tried for 350. Again, "he just offered them for fifty, so I won't take less than fifty," I said. "Okay, how much you want?" "Fifty, I want them for fifty." "No, no, he no say fifty. He say five-hundred." "I heard fifty, so no. " "Okay, I give you three hundred," and he grabbed my hand and tried to put them on me. I pushed him away, but he managed to drop them in my hands and he demanded payment. I told him I didn't want them and tried to give them back but he wouldn't accept them, instead asking me how much I'd pay. Again, I tried to say fifty rupees because his friend had offered them to us for fifty rupees and I refused to pay more than that. "Okay, two hundred." I stopped and turned to face him, telling him I was going to walk away without paying a single rupee if he didn't take them back from me, but still he insisted two hundred. Somewhere to my right I heard Lauren yelling to just drop them on the ground, and when I bent to there was his hand, right underneath to catch them. All I could do was laugh at this point at how ridiculous this whole thing was. If he wasn't going to take them back, and he wasn't going to let me put them on the ground, I was going to take them. He let me hold on to them as Katie and I fought through the crowd to get to the bus, demanding 200 rupees and finally 100 as we made it to the door. He finally lowered his price to 100, which I still refused and managed to drop the bracelets onto the ground. He quickly picked them up and offered to sell me six for one hundred as I climbed up the stairs. I was laughing hysterically at this point and sat down in my seat, relaxing for a moment after all of the commotion until we heard a vigorous tapping on our window. We looked out, and there he was again. Katie was truly shaken by the experience, but I'd had so much fun because I was able to argue and argue and argue, and number one not get in trouble with anyone for it, and number two not have to worry about feeling bad about demanding what I wanted. I'd heard fifty, and I wasn't going to pay any more than that. I knew that, so I just played the game. We played the game again on our second walk to the Taj, but it was a little harder this time because the boy offering us key chains was probably five years old, clearly malnourished, and as cute as he could possibly be. I couldn't bring myself to be firm with him, so I told him that his key chains were very beautiful but no matter what he said I wasn't going to purchase them, but there were hundreds of other students around who might be interested so he might have better luck trying one of them. I pointed at Lauren, trying to pawn him off on her, but he didn't even bite. He stayed with me the entire walk to the gate, trying to sell me something. But the thing is, it was already bad enough without letting them know you had money. I can't even imagine what it would have been like if I'd bought something because word gets around. If they know you've got cash to spend, they'll hound even harder. We spent an hour and a half inside this time, taking more pictures of the Taj at sunset. We had free time to just enjoy being in its presence because we'd already been there that morning, so we didn't feel like we needed to walk around and explore as much as we had in the morning. So Lauren, Katie, James and I sat on a bench for awhile, relaxing and enjoying the site, until I thought about Jack and Rose spinning around on the dance floor at the party below deck in Titanic and decided I wanted to spin at the Taj. I grabbed hands with Lauren and we spun around in circles, and Katie wanted to join in so Lauren and I let go and the three of us stuck out our hands and spun until we could spin no more, and then watched the Taj spin around us. Sometimes, the situation just calls for being young and being free. If I would have been here with my parents I never would have done this, and who knows how old I'll be the next time I come to India, so it really was my only chance to let go and act like a kid. I cried when it was time to leave, even after taking my final moments of taking it all in. I'd heard my seventh grade English teacher tell me that if you stand and look at Stone Henge for more than ten minutes, you start to realize that you're staring at a bunch of rocks and it loses its charm. The Taj, however, will never, no matter how long you stare at it, ever just be a marble structure. It's the Taj. That's all you have to say to know all that that statement entails, and it will always be like that. Some things after you've seen them aren't as alluring anymore, but the Taj will forever be the Taj. We drove back to the hotel and checked out before getting dinner at Pizza Hut. We were taking an express train back to Delhi, a nicer train than the one we arrived to Agra on, and it was serving dinner but our tour guide didn't want us to chance it. So, we ate pizza and watched the waiters dance in the aisles, 50s diner-style with an Indian twist. After leaving the restaurant, which was right next door to our hotel, I ran into my boyfriend and he told me he had a present for me. We had to leave and I told him so but the bus ended up not leaving on time so he found my window and handed me a wrapped box. I asked him how much he wanted for it and he said it was free, a gift. I refused it at first, but he told me he wanted me to have this gift, that it was the Taj. A man was giving me the Taj. How could I say no to that? I thanked him profusely and promised to write before opening it up. And sure enough, it was a model of the Taj Mahal about eight inches square in size. It was quite funny too because I was thinking about wanting to buy one for my Mom but decided against it because I didn't want it to break on the way back. Funnier still, I don't even remember my boyfriend's name. The train was delayed again, big surprise, so we had to wait about forty-five minutes this time. Lauren and I both had to go to the bathroom and were advised against it because I quote "we'd slip in the muck". We didn't know how long the wait for the train was going to be at this point, only the rough estimate of a half hour that the voice was announcing, so we decided to check it out and if it was too bad, we'd deal with it then. We found the bathroom with two stalls, one open and one occupied, but the attendant advised us to wait for the one in use. For ten minutes, Lauren and I waited for her to be done. I'd heard shuffling during the first few minutes, but nothing after that so I was really starting to worry that the attendant would force open the door and find a woman lying dead on the floor. Lauren finally went into the free bathroom because it wasn't really that bad. The floors were clean, wet from splashing water all over the floor to clean up the urine that hadn't made it into the hole of a toilet in the floor, but clean enough. She was wise enough to bring her own toilet paper and I had a napkin from dinner, so we were good. While she was in there, the door to the other stall finally opened and out walked a man. I was taken aback first because it there was a men's restroom. I knew that for sure because we'd passed it on the way so why was he in ours? And secondly, he'd been in there so long I really didn't want to be the one to go in after him but I was desperate. I took a deep breath and went in, assuming it was going to be nicer than the one Lauren was in because the attendant had told us to use that one, but no. It was not. It wasn't even a toilet bowl in the floor like Lauren's was, but a hole covered with bars. But I was no worse for the wear, and I can now say I've experienced the Indian bathroom. During the wait for the train, I watched little children beg for food and when given slices of our leftover pizza from dinner, out of nowhere teenage boys would come and bully them for it. I wanted so badly to say something and it took every ounce of strength I had to keep my mouth shut, because disciplining someone who just dragged a child across the floor threatening to push him onto the train tracks in front of an oncoming train unless he gives up the slice of pizza really isn't the best idea. I was relieved to get away from it all and revert back into my own little world as I wrote postcards once we got on the train. You think you become just a little bit more accustomed to it, but then the bullies come out. It left me feeling numb and emotionally exhausted. Once we got to Delhi we took the bus to our hotel and spent the rest of the night in the nightclub there, dancing to American music. I feel lucky that I have the ability to witness it, but also get away from it. And it's knowing that I have that ability and those whose situations bother me so much do not just tears me apart. 
