Day 18: Taj Mahal, Agra

Trip Start Sep 21, 2006

228

Trip End Jun 01, 2007

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of India Agra, India
Monday, October 9, 2006

We're pulling into Agra on the public bus when there's a commotion in the market beside us. Two bulls are bashing their skulls together. A man tries to separate them, whacking one with a huge stick, to no avail. They crash through a stall (not a china shop, fortunately), demolishing it, then flee.
We're here in Agra, naturally, for the Taj Mahal, and bedding within walking distance of its East Gate entrance. Three hours before sunset, I enter, but linger in the first courtyard to savour the first view of the great mausoleum. There it is, the 350-year-old jewel of India, a icon, immaculate, framed in the gateway.
A crowd is gathered by the famous marble seat at the head of the long pools that lead to the Taj. Photographers contort their subjects into poses (porn star and pinching the dome seem most popular).

01 Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is sublime. No matter how many pictures you may have seen of it, it still holds a power and you want to gaze at its quality, symmetry and volume endlessly.
At its heart, in an echoing chamber where visitors' voices become a cacophony, are the cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan. (They are both entombed below). Shah Jahan had meant to build a black Taj to match his wife's white marble edifice, on the opposite side of the river Yamuna, but his extravagant spending was ended when his son, Aurangzeb seized power and locked him away.
Until sunset, I pay a visit to the small museum to gaze at my first image of Mumtaz Mahal, a delicate portrait on ivory and lay on the lawns, just admiring.
As the light fades, the eagles circling the great onion dome are replaced by bats. Then mosquitoes drive me away. It's hard to leave the now ghostly grey Taj Mahal behind. I try to burn its silhouette onto my retina before I exit.