November 23, 2010
Hello from India!
I have been meaning to start a blog for some time, and my current trip to India seems to be the perfect reason to finally put that intent into action! And just so you know – this is going to be a long first post.
I arrived in India one week ago. After recovering a bit from jet lag, we ventured out into Delhi to see some of the local sites, but an unusual rain storm prevented much of the sightseeing – all we had a chance to see was Connaught Place. Known here as CP, it is a circular outdoor shopping center in the heart of Delhi. Some of the shops there are quite old and famous, and people are quite proud of it. I was struck by the fact that there were no billboards – I was expecting something on the order of Times Square or Picadilly Circus. It would make for quite an elegant area, but the buildings were still under the renovation that was supposed to be finished before the Commonwealth Games. (appropriately, the site is under maintenance. For those who don’t know, the Commonwealth games are like the Olympics for nations that used to be part of the British Commonwealth, and they finished at the end of October.)
Next we went to India Gate, which looks a lot like the Arc d’Triumph. India gate is a monument built after Indian independance to honor fallen soldiers – initially just for those who served in WWII, but since then it’s expanded to include others.
This past weekend we went to Agra, which was the capital of the Mughal Empire. Agra is astounding in many ways – not the least of which is that it exposes how much history I simply do not know. As in, here is this whole empire — which was filled with art and culture (produced one of the wonders of the world!) and undoubtedly had a large and lasting impact on thousands of people in Asia — which I knew absolutely nothing about.
Anyway, one of the great and highly popular emperors, Akbar, had his palace in a smaller town about 25 km from Agra called Fatehpur Sikri. Like many of the structures there, it was built with red sandstone and had intricate carvings on some of the buildings. The palace had many different houses, for the emperor and his wives, and their servants, and the court officials. It also had an area for performances, which could be viewed from a special tiered seating area specially designed to be cooler during the hottest days. The Mughal architects must have also been very concerned with water drainage, since there were small canals incorporated into the design of all the buildings. Some fed into pools or fountains, and some led out of the structure. It must have been a very grand place in the height of the empire, and I kept trying to picture it buzzing with activity, but since I had no idea what the Mughals were like, I had a difficult time doing so.
The other seat of governance of the Mughal Empire was the red fort in Agra itself. Unfortunately, we came to the fort late in the day so we didn’t get a chance to see much of it. It contains a court, a mosque, and several other rooms. All that I saw was done in the same style as Fatehpur Sikri. I hope to go back there sometime and get a more thorough look.
The rest of the monuments in Agra are tombs. One is Akbar’s tomb, which is finished in a combination of sandstone and marble. Hopefully I’ll have pictures up at some time, but for now they are still on my camera.
There’s also Itimad ud Dowla, which is the tomb of an advisor to the emperor. People often call it “baby Taj” since it is done in white marble and contains the same sort of inlaid stone design as the Taj Mahal. However, the stone work and carvings are much more intricate, and the walls are inlaid with a greater variety of semiprecious stones. The interior walls are painted many different colors whereas the Taj Mahal has no painted surfaces. Still, the detailed work and the variety of stones make it a remarkable place to visit. It was the last place we visited before leaving Agra, and there were no crowds. The marble made the inside of the building nice and cool and it was a good mellow end to the trip.
Of course, no trip to Agra would be complete without a visit to the Taj Mahal. It truly is an awe-inspiring place, and is so well known it requires little discrption. It is grand without being overbearing and ornate without being gaudy. It was built by Shah Jahan to honor his wife who died in childbirth. It’s pretty amazing. I thought it would be trite to go to the Taj Mahal as a tourist to India, since (I imagine) it is probably the most well-known place to see in India. But it is definitely a place to see in person, and an experience that one must have if one makes the journey to India.
We also went to Agra during the full moon, and the Taj Mahal is rumored to be beautiful by the light of the full moon, so we got tickets to whatever viewings still had openings. After passing through three security checks, we were allowed to stand on the sandstone platform of the gate for a half hour and view the moonlit Taj Mahal. The night was a little cloudy, but the moon did peek through for some parts of the half hour. But I would not say that this is an experience one must have. The city of Agra keeps its lights on at night and the monument was backlit by an orange glow so the Taj generally appeared to be in shadow. At times, if you look at the topmost dome, you could see the moonlight reflected off the white marble, which turned that part of the dome a lusterous blue-white. I could envision the entire monument glowing faintly blue against a black night sky and could understand why a moonlit viewing of the Taj Mahal might once have been magical. But until Agra dims its lights, I can only imagine what that might have been like.
