Agra Tuesday

Up before dawn to go to the Taj Mahal for sunrise. Some of the women had dressed in their Saris for the occasion, but Hillary had her Sari pulled by a particularly aggressive monkey! We had to go through somewhat of a stringent security check (women on the left, men on the right), but given the history of the Mumbai attacks and the obvious PR value if an attack could actually be carried out, I understood. The sun was just coming up as we entered the gate, but the air was hazy, and we never got a great glow on the building. It wasn’t as much of a letdown as climbing Masada before dawn to a cloudy day, however. There was a large outer gate and then we entered onto the grounds of the Taj itself. It is truly spectacular. All in white marble, it dominates everything around it. Built by Shah Jahan between 1631 and 1653 as a mausoleum to his wife, Mumtaz, who had died in childbirth for their 14th child (only a few of whom had survived). He was so stricken that he built this in her memory. There were 20,000 people working on the project. Its interior marble and inlays were spectacular with breathtaking detail. We took all the usual pictures, with people in and out of the picture, water reflections, etc. Of course, people were trying to make a Rupee or 2 by taking our pictures and finding us later to sell the pictures (for only 100 Rupees - $2) or show us where the best shots could be taken. There was also a mosque on one side with a mirror image building on the other side, just for the symmetry of it all.


We went from there to the “Baby Taj”, or the Itimad-Ul-Daulah. This is the mausoleum to Mumtaz’s grandfather, who had come from Persia. He had been Prime Minister to an earlier Mughal emperor. The inlaid marble here was also fascinating, and there were rooms for the whole family, including brothers, wives, nieces and nephews. I think there were 12 in all. It was built in the 1620’s, 10-15 years before the Taj.

Lunch was in a private home of a local gem merchant and antiques dealer, Vrakash Lall and his wife, Nighi. Similar to the author of “India Calling”, he was born here but raised in New York. He returned in 1992 to go into the family business. The house has been in his family for about 100 years or more, as it was originally owned by his great grandfather. The property has since been subdivided, but only to cousins, who have houses next door and in the back. He and his wife had an arranged marriage, after the families agreed that it would be a good match. It was only then that they met and had a few meetings to see if the might be compatible. She said that either could have said no with no loss of face, but I’m not really sure of that. She said it was certainly preferable to a “love marriage”. She proceeded to give us a cooking demonstration of making Puri (a type of bread), Paneer (home made cottage cheese similar to Ricotta) and Kassa Paneer, a tomato based sauce with the paneer and lots of wonderful spices – ginger, cardamom, cumin, coriander, turmeric and others- which was served with the Puri. Very tasty. The rest of lunch was lots of other veggies. She and Ann exchanged cauliflower recipes.

We passed on the marble factory and store.

Tomorrow, we have a 2 ½ hour train to lunch, followed by a 4 hour bus. Blecch. We are going, however, south along the Yamuna River to the state of Madhya Pradesh and the city of Khajuraho: the city of temples devoted to Kama Sutra.

-While Steve was catching up on the blog, I went shopping with the two couples - Ed and Fran & Sal and Edie that we have been hanging out with. We had been told earlier in the day by our tour guide that the best place to walk was down the street to the right of our hotel. After stopping to check out the first store, we headed down the street. What an unmitigated disaster trying to even get a block away. There is precious little room between where the cars, pedicabs and motorcycles drive, the cows and water buffalo walk and where pedestrians might be able to make their way. We walked as far from the road as possible, walking in and out of parked cars, single file, but one of the pedicab drivers kept following us to try to get us in his vehicle. It wasn’t enough to follow us in his pedicab, every couple of feet, he got out of his vehicle to bother us again. In addition, the incessant honking and smells of cow shit were enough to do me in. I was reminded of the continually playing video of Mumbai traffic that surrounded the India crafts exhibit at the Kenned y Center last march. It was truly accurate! We finally turned around and headed back to the quiet of the hotel, and sure enough the same pedicab driver turned around as well and continued to harass us. We did not get rid of him until we turned into the gate of our hotel. So much for checking out the streets of Agra! AHS

The other medical thing to report is the cold going around the group. Ann is now the one with the sniffles, having gone through 4 boxes of Kleenex today! She is impressing everyone with her sneezes, but I am used to it.  I suppose I'll be the next with the cold.