Magical India - the final chapter
24 hours in Agra :)
The sheer architecture alone means you could spend days looking in detail at the buildings and still not seeing everything there is to see. The marble was beautiful, and so bright in the sunshine and the carvings into it and intricate detail behind every pattern was just spectacular. Such talent :)
The most amazing building in
the World in my personal opinion – so calm, so special, so beautiful. My sanctuary :)
The Taj Mahal is a pure white
marble mausoleum located in Agra, It was built by Mughai Emperor Shah Jahan in
memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal is widely recognized as
"the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired
masterpieces of the world's heritage.
In 1631, Shah Jahan, emperor
during the empire’s period of greatest properity, was grief stricken when his third
wife died during the birth of their 14th child. Construction of the
Taj Mahal began in 1632. The court chronicles of Shah Jahan’s grief illustrate
the love story traditionally held as an inspiration for Taj Mahal. The
principal mausoleum was completed in 1648, and the surrounding buildings and
garden were finised five years later. Emperor Shah Jahan described the Taj in
these words:
“Should guilty seek asylum
here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes
free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to
this mansion,
All his past sins are to be
washed away.
The sight of this mansion
creates sorrowing sights;
And the sun and the moon shed
tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has
been made;
To display thereby the creator’s
glory”.
The Taj Mahal incorporates and
expands on design traditions of Persian architecture and earlier Mughal
architecture.
The Taj Mahal was such a calming and special place for me. I
hadn’t given too much thought as to how I would feel, or what I would feel when
I saw this palace. In fact a friend of mine had gone before and told me that he
had to go twice to fully appreciate it, so I presumed I would go and see it and
take some photos and that would be it. I just knew that while
I was in India there was absolutely no way I could leave without seeing it.
I very nearly didn’t see it. A friend in Bermuda had sent me an
article in which sadly a British woman had climbed and then jumped out of her hotel window to escape
the hotel manager and his staff attempting to attack her. The warnings were
such that females should not travel alone, especially in light of the recent
attacks on women on local buses as well. India felt like a scary place for a
while. So company was appreciated so that I was able to experience this special place without the fear factor.
I didn’t expect to feel such a connection with the beauty
and immenseness of the Palace. I felt
like I had come home when I got inside the gates. I just wanted to sit calmly and quietly and
absorb all of the positive energy I felt around me. I could have literally sat all day sitting
from afar on a bench watching the people walking past me, watching the smiles
on peoples faces and taking in the peace. In hindsight, I wish I had gone with
my instinct to stay there and spend hours there, or in the very least go and see
the Baby Taj Mahal but then come back to the Taj Mahal for the afternoon. Hindsight...lol.
We visited at sunrise and while we didn’t have the spectacular
colors like I had hoped, we had an extremely clear and sunny day with wonderful
blue skies. At that time in the morning it is also fantastically quiet as the
majority of people seemed to arrive a little later in the morning, thankfully
just as we were leaving.
This meant that we had a lot of space to pop out some funky
yoga poses without people fighting for that prime photo spot! Of course the
handstand featured heavily ;)
From here we moved on with our lovely tuk tuk driver to the
Baby Taj Mahal. To say it was a warm day was to put it mildly. We drove through
immense poverty as we worked our way through Agra. People live in shacks on the side of the
road, they wash in the street, pee in the street, hang out in the streets and a
large number sleep in the streets. There
are half built buildings everywhere, and some people seem to sleep in the open
parts of these buildings also. There are
people everywhere, trying to sell you something or show you something. It could
be quite overwhelming at times, but more than anything very, very sad to
witness such poverty knowing that we were there for only 24 hours and were
lucky enough to leave whenever we wanted.
The view from the Taj Mahal is spectacular, however when you
cross the city you see the view of the Taj Mahal from the other temples and it
is very different. The Taj Mahal sits majestically behind vast empty spaces of
derelict land, swamp areas and land areas filled with rubbish.
The Baby Taj Mahal was built between 1622 and 1628 and
represents a transition between the first phase of monumental Mughal
architecture – primarily built with red sandstone with marble decorations, - to
its second phase, based on white marble as in realized in the Taj Mahal. The
Baby Taj Mahal is often described as “jewel box”, the tomb of I'timād-ud-Daulah is often
regarded as a draft of the Taj Mahal.
The walls are white marble from
Rajasthan encrusted with semi-precious stone decorations –cornelian, jasper,
lapis lazuli, onyx and topaz formed into images of cypress trees and wine
bottles, or more elaborate decorations like cut fruits or vases containing
bouquets. The detail is spectacular and I found myself very snap happy lol!!
I adored this place as well J
Lots of handstand opportunities here too!
What made my day was a little boy who was playing in the derelict land
shouting up at me. He had seen me attempting to do handstands and decided that
he wanted to join in. He was shouting “Look at me lady, look at me” and when I
turned around there he was doing cartwheels through the mud and grinning from
ear to ear proudly. I took some photos of him, which are priceless! What an
awesome connection J
What a special day and amazing memories of such wonderful
architecture and history J
So glad we made the trip from Delhi to spend 24 hours in Agra. Worth every
single second of trouble getting there! They will remain engrained in my memory
for always.
Very grateful <3
