Agra

  Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
Saturday, August 8, 2009

Agra - 8th August

We stayed at the (unusually) accurately named Taj View Hotel which was only about 1 km from the monument. We got up at first sparrow chuff to be at the gates when they opened at 6:00.
I tried the old disability discount ploy which had worked at many monuments & museums but it didn't work here, they want their expensive (£10.00) entrance fee.

Taj Mahal
When you first enter the formal garden you can’t see the Taj Mahal, but when you go through the main gate you get your first wonderful view. You then have to fight your way to the front of the other visitors to get the classic shot down the long pond.
As the sun came up, the marble seemed to glow (it is actually translucent) & as the sun got higher the Taj Mahal changed colour from cream to brilliant white. The mausoleum is huge with every marble surface carved or inlaid with semi-precious stones. The huge platform is also paved with white marble.
The honeycomb filigree screens that provide light inside, are carved from single slabs of marble (they didn’t have diamond cutting tools then, either).
Inside the octagonal centre is even more elaborately decorated with more inlays. You are not supposed to take photos in there, but I must have accidently pressed the button & got some lucky shots. Ironically, the only non-symmetric part of the whole monument is poor old Shah Jahan’s tomb which is placed to one side of his wife’s central tomb. Had he been alive when he died I’m sure he would have done it better.
The Taj Mahal took 20,000 men 22 years to build & was finished just 10 years before Shah Jahan himself died. It almost bankrupted the state.

It is said that Jahan built the Taj Mahal as a monument to his favourite wife Mumtaz Mahal (chosen one of the palace) but it is now thought that he intended it to be the Koranic representation of paradise on earth ,where he & his wife could spend eternity together – he was too much of a megalomaniac to build something like this for someone else.
Legend has it that he died of a broken heart looking at the Taj Mahal across the river from his palace. The truth is that he died of an opium & aphrodisiac overdose during a sex orgy at the age of 74 (that’s my boy !)

Agra Fort
The Mughal rulers lived in the palace within the Agra Fort & Shah Jahan was imprisoned there by his son for the last 8 years of his life. The palace has many beautiful courtyards for public & private audiences with the king. They are also made of white marble with inlays of semi-precious stones.
Next to the palace is a large complex where the rulers kept their harem. King Akbar had 3,000 concubines – this makes pop-stars seem like saints.
At the corner of the palace is the private mosque that Shah Jahan used when imprisoned & near there is a vantage point giving a  splendid view of the Taj Mahal.

Agra
Our driver took us to a factory where they hand make beautiful marble table tops. To demonstrate its translucence they darken the room & shine a torch through the stone.
They showed us the two processes in making inlays; forming each intricate stone on an abrasive wheel & carving the marble to take the inlays. These skills are kept in the family by not allowing any worker to learn both skills & they won’t teach the women because they will marry into another family & take the expertise with them.