A Visit to the
Taj Mahal
by Alice
Chackoletti
When I was in
high school in America, I did a paper on the Taj
Mahal in Agra India. So, when I had a
chance to go to North India for business, as an
adult, and stay there for an extended length of
time, I decided I must go see “THE TAJ”.
On a Friday
morning, I hopped in a van for the 4-hour ride
from New Delhi to Agra. It was a very
hot and muggy day in November, even though the
van we were riding in had some type of air
conditioning. Lots of Lorries (trucks) and wagons
pulled by camels, public buses with people
hanging out of their fully open side doors or
even people and loads on top of them, as well as
a handful of personal cars were normal on these
roads. Of course, I think we traveled at around
30 miles per hour, at the most. Most
of these motorized vehicles used their horn to
let others know they were in their way and
therefore it became a very long and noisy ride. The
lane markers are just a guidance for drivers, as
most of them do not stay within their boundaries,
which is typical around this part of the world.
The sights and
smells along the way were unbelievably
heartbreaking, much different from Kerala, India,
roadside scenes I was used to before I came to
America. We saw a lot of kids of all
ages running around with no clothes or minimal
clothes on; young people and even older adults
standing along or sitting on the edges of the
roadways, doing their bodily discharge on the
sides of the road were scenes hard to get out of
my head, even several years later. There
were many people living in very impoverished
conditions (shanty or sometimes just cardboard
boxes for their homes) along the sides of roads. Adults
had smoldering fires with lots of smoke out in
the open to cook whatever they were preparing for
their morning meals. It was difficult
to see such living conditions experienced by so
many people. Sadly, the people living
in this Indian shanti were there not by their own
choice.
After several
hours of traveling, we stopped along the way to
eat lunch at a Western-style hotel and for a
bathroom break. Of course, anywhere
there is a public bathroom, there is someone
there at the doorway whose job is to hand out a
small amount of toilet paper, for a small coin,
as payment. The other ladies in the
van did not speak much English and therefore most
of us rode quietly to our destination. We
were told by the driver that we would need a
certain amount of rupees to enter the Taj and
that they did not accept any other form of
payment. So, people that did not have enough
Indian rupees with them were frantically trying
to get local cash at the stop-over during our
lunch stop. Believe it or NOT: The
foreign tourist rate at the TAJ is more than ten
times the cost of what the local Indians pay.
Once we
arrived, they separated us by male and female
groups and a lady searched my bags, as well as
patted me down. She told me that the
little “mini-tripod” I was carrying was
considered a “weapon” and I could not
bring it inside this important national treasure. Of
course, I did not speak Hindi and she did not
speak English: So, now somehow, I was
trying to communicate with her by showing her how
I would attach the two-inch-long tripod to the
bottom of my small camera to use it as a
stabilizer for the camera. My attempt to convince
her that it is NOT a weapon was unsuccessful. I
do not think she understood the functionality or
even wanted to know about it. All she
could say to me, via pointing to somewhere nearby
that I had to store it somewhere before I could
enter the gates. All the other people
in my tour group were already inside the gate and
I was stuck outside trying to figure out what to
do next. I had to yell at my tour
driver/guide (who was in a separate line for men)
that they had to wait for me and NOT leave me
behind, as I did not speak the local language or
understand anything they were saying.
After looking
around to figure out what she was pointing at, I
eventually found a locker somewhere nearby on the
outside of the gates and stored the tripod/weapon
inside it. Of course, I had to use
more local money (rupees) to be able to use the
locker, which was going to cut into the amount of
money I had left, to enter the gate. After
what seemed like a very long unpleasant ordeal, I
found out that since it was a Friday, which is a
Muslim holiday, some parts of the Taj would not
be open to the public. How
disappointing to learn that it would not be a
FULL tour, although I did not know how much I
would miss out. With 4+ hours of travel each way,
and a stop for lunch, the tour itself was
something like an hour or two.
I did not know
before that there are several buildings in this
complex that make up the TAJ MAHAL facility. The
view of these buildings as I walked into the
complex is so unbelievably large and beautiful. There
is nothing like it in the world and it is very
hard to describe it. This structure is
considered the best Mughal architecture and the
large dome is over 100 ft tall.
What I
remembered in my High School research was that
the guy who designed it had his right hand cut
off, after the design was completed, so that he
would NEVER design another one like it, ever! What
a way to honor his creativity. He lost
his arm! Although the primary Taj
building is made of white marble, the main “gateway
building” is made of red marble. There
is a reflection pond and gardens leading up to
the mausoleum building and it is just mesmerizing
walking up to this very large beautiful building,
that is the main focus of the complex.
Once I finally
got inside the vast complex, I connected with a
couple of men from America. They were
an uncle (in his late 40s) and his nephew (in his
early 20s) on “an around the world”
tour, paid for by the “RICH” uncle.
When the uncle who became financially well off,
he decided to give his nephew a “gift of
travel”, so that the young man can learn
about parts of the world that he knew nothing
about. I asked them to take my picture
in front of the Taj, which was to be my memento
of the trip. That picture of me
sitting in front of the Taj in my pink shirt,
reminds me of England’s Princess Diana in
her bright red dress in front of the TAJ, in the
early 1990s.
Millions of
people visit this ultra-fascinating complex,
which is a must-see in my book, not just because
I am Indian American. But anyone with
a chance should experience the awe of being there.
Overall, the
trip was worth the long 4+ hours riding in the
older bumpy van each way, plus just a few hours
there took more like 12 hours to complete. At
the end of the driving tour, the tour company
tried to take us “captive audience” to
a place where a group of local workers labor/carve
stuff out of marble to try to sell to us, “tourists”
that will buy anything to remind us of the day. I
was not in the mood to buy anything that I did
not need/want, that I would have to transport
thousands of miles back home. However,
I got to see, touch, and explore the beloved TAJ
that I will treasure every day of my life going
forward.
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