Incredible INDIA - 24 hours in Agra

Magical India - the final chapter

24 hours in Agra :)

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 14^th 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.

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 :) 

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 ;)  I would love to come back again for the sunset, now that would be awesome.

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