Return to 1997 AUTUMN Index
by Boswell
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
Agra is a large and busy city settled astride the Yumuna River, a tributary of the Ganges. It's most famous building is without doubt the world renowned Taj Mahal built by the Mogul ruler Shahjehan as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal.
Since motorised transport is no longer allowed up to the gates of the Taj the coach bounces to a halt some way distant and we all transfer to little battery buses and travel 'Indian style' (also Central Line in the rush hour style) all squished up together. No sooner are we out in the open than a hard core group of Indian nick-nack sellers and beggars flock around. Being polite, and English, we all smile and say 'no thank you....yes they are really lovely beads but I don't want them...thanks all the same'. Big mistake. Never look at the goods and never, never say they are nice or in any way be complimentary about them unless you intend to buy, for any attention will inspire the vendor with the ardour of an evangelist as he extols the virtue of his postcards over all other postcards and tells you they are a real bargain at £10.00 a card. Quickly our little group stops sauntering along and starts to scuttle, making a headlong dash into the large gateway at the Eastern entrance to the Taj hotly pursued by assorted postcard, jewellery, nick nack and trinket sellers.
Once inside the precincts of the building things calm down again and our guide takes us to the shade of a Banyan tree to tell us all about the history and architecture of the wonder of the world we are about to see. His English is the linguistic equivalent of a Rubik's cube, all the right words but not necessarily in the right order. His vocabulary is enormous and particularly so in the area of quantifying and qualifying clauses, 'so as it is we see, whatever and however, moreover and clearly, approaching fastly upon us this building of construction being a thing of, and regarded as such.' Sentences that are like sandwiches into which someone has forgotten to put the filling - endless mouthfuls of chewy bread which finally lose their interest as their contents remain elusive. Still, we all stand around dutifully squinting at him with a look of concentration and appreciation while he continues in his puzzling tour of all the funny joining words and meaningless idioms of the English Language.
Before we go through the main gate that leads to the Taj we are all searched for incendiary devices like cigarettes which are confiscated lest one damage the wondrous building. Personally I find this a bit offensive but surrender my ciggys just the same. Then I have to negotiate a complex deal about the video camera. You can only film the Taj from the gateway platform and you have to pay 25 rupees to do that. Having paid my money and signed a pledge of some sort I am taken off by a smiling man who gives me a knowing look and hastens off down a passageway. Trustingly I follow, wondering where I might be going. The passage emerges into the light. It is my first sight of the Taj. The building that inspired a thousand curry houses is without doubt one of the most dramatic and fascinating edifices in the world. It is built of white marble inlaid with exquisite 'pietra dura', the central domed section surrounded by four minarets that lean slightly outwards so that should one collapse it would fall away from the centre. The gardens are symmetrical and harmoniously laid out with the famous reflection of the Taj mirrored in the water pools in front. Perhaps this image was intended as a comment on the transfiguration of souls - a visual reminder to the grief-stricken Shahjehan that his beloved's death may only be a change of perception, transmigration...metempsychosis.
As you go up the stairs to the platform upon which the Taj is built it is necessary to take off one's shoes. For what reason I am unsure, unless the caretakers have discovered that thousands of tourist socks keep the floor very well polished. I would recommend taking a bag to put one's footwear in since the constant demand for shoe-minding tips can make quite a hole in the budget.
The Taj is unimaginably beautiful; as the sun sets it changes colour from white through pink to grey as the light is no longer reflecting off the white marble surfaces. In the twilight it seems to be a living thing becoming a ghost. An almost translucent quality processes it until darkness falls and the image is lost.
Shahjehan was deposed by his son Aurengzeb and imprisoned in the Red Fort. From his room in the fort he was able to see the Taj. When he was weakened with old age and his eyesight gave way a mirror was placed so that he could see the building more clearly. It is said that he died looking at its reflection.
The Red Fort is an impressive building. Less obviously influenced by Persia and made predominantly of sandstone it perches on the cliffs overlooking the Yumuna River. The carving of the stone is well preserved due to the careful construction of overhanging sections to protect the ornate areas form erosion. However, areas have been damaged by pollution and generations of neglect and looting. As with many of the monuments in India the first serious attempt at conservation was made during the British occupation under the auspices of Lord Curzon. While we were there we were able to witness some of the current restorers in operation. A rickety wooden scaffolding was erected in the white marble section that housed Shahjehan in his imprisonment. Four men were sitting on it each armed with the latest equipment to clean and restore the fine interior. Toothbrushes. Looking slightly bewildered they sat atop the scaffolding and in a desultory manner rubbed away at their shoes using the aforementioned implement. Its heartening to see that the Indian government is taking the task of preserving this wonderful building so seriously. Perhaps they might go a step further and provide some toothpaste?
The view across the Yamuna is timeless. Watermelon beds, buffalo, camels and dobhi's all make full use of the slow moving muddy waters as they snake through the city. The calm drift of the river contrasts mightily with the frenzy of the streets where oxen, rickshaws, tuk-tuk, taxis and buses jostle together producing a cacophony of bells, horns and bellows. Travelling in any of these is an exciting business - forget Space Mountain, go on the 'Bicycle Rickshaw Ride of Death' (only 50 rupees, special price) - terrifyingarooney, as Zoe Heller might say. My own verbal response was hysterical laughter and screaming interspersed with fervent prayer to any God within earshot. The driver (peddler?) was a man of advanced years who had probably peddled the White Sahibs of the Raj in years gone by. He had great dignity and thighs of iron which calmly propelled the creaking and groaning conveyance through the maelstrom of traffic. He seemed unperturbed by the buses that missed us by inches and the subsequent high pitched squeaks from the back-seat-rickshaw-wallah. Apart from being physically uncomfortable hanging on for dear life at the back I felt uncomfortable in my mind about allowing a man old enough to be my grandfather to exhaust himself transporting me around Agra. I wished I had managed to loose some weight, I wished I was an ectomorph. I considered offering to get out and walk up the hilly bits, but then I was afraid of embarrassing him in front of his younger colleagues. I regretted getting on the Rickshaw in the first place but then I recalled his sad and disappointed face when I had taken a tuk-tuk the previous night. So, lost in the maze of my western sensibilities, I sat at the back and squeaked. When the ride was over I paid double the fare and we namasted each other, bobbing up and down like those wooden pecking birds. He seemed well pleased as I made my unsteady way back to the hotel and straight to the bar.
Our guide for the week was a high caste, high cheekboned and strikingly handsome man. It became abundantly clear from early on that he had formed an attachment to me. Being part cynic and part romantic I alternated between doubting his intentions and thinking that this was 'A Passage to India,' I was his Mrs Moore and he my Dr. Aziz. We sat together discussing religion and spirituality, ecology and compassion, he in his quaint and impenetrable version of English and me in my own rapidly disintegrating version of my native tongue. Have you ever noticed that when you go abroad your grasp of your own language starts to slip? Talking about animal welfare we happened upon the subject of performing bears. Friends of mine give to charities dedicated to freeing the troubled bears of the world and 'Aziz' agreed that he had always been unsure about such exploitation of animals. However, he had met and spoken at length with a performing bear owner who had said he loved the bear more than his own children, not a great recommendation but probably sincere.
The road to Fatehpur Skiri takes you away from Agra, through the surrounding countryside to the west and past a village famous throughout India for its performing bears. I was becoming inured to the now familiar bump and grind of the coach as it lurched and bounced its way onwards past open sewers and litter strewn landscape. As we approached the village 'Aziz' beckoned me to the front of the bus and asked if I would like to meet the performing bear owner. I felt the curious gaze of my fellow travellers boring into me and decided that I could live without meeting this man since we were on a bit of a schedule and I could see that the whole thing was going to become hugely involved. I had learnt by now that politeness in India is a real art form. Offers are made but must not be accepted so that everyone has appeared to do their utmost to please. Soon I could see the first of the bears. They are not native to this part of India but are, I think, captive bred from bears taken from the wild in Kashmir. This used to be a lucrative trade before tourists became aware of animal welfare, now the coaches drive straight through and the passengers get horrified glimpses and blurred photographs of these inappropriate and unwilling entertainers. 'Aziz' had really got involved in bear spotting and was seeing them everywhere 'Look bear...oh,no..it's a man..look Bear! Ah, sorry it's a cow...look bear!' They were a touching sight, not because they looked particularly ill used but because standing on the side of a road in the diesel blowback and dust from coaches and lorries is not a bear thing to do. It was as inappropriate as the septuagenarian Rickshaw wallah but without the dignity of choice. A sad, and to my mind, unacceptable, spectacle.
Fatehpur Sikri is an abandoned fortress city built from red sandstone in a mix of styles; Central Asian, Mughal and Hindu Rajput. The Emperor Akbar had moved his capital here in 1574 after the local Sufi saint, Salim Chishti, had answered his prayers and given him a son. However by 1600 it was abandoned and the capital moved to Agra. The nick nack sellers are out in force around Fatehpur Sikri and it is impossible to escape unless you actually sprint hell for leather through them. Since this is undignified and difficult laden down with cameras you are just stuck with a fast walk accompanied by several men thrusting necklaces and various other do dahs at you. I only bought six.
Once inside the precincts it is possible to enjoy this oasis of calm and harmony and testament to open plan living. One gets the impression that the Emperors were giants, the scale of the building is awesome and includes an area of courtyard where Akbar could play chess using slave girls for pieces - winner takes all, I suppose.
Slightly away from the main palace is the Jami Majid (tomb of the saint Salim Chishti) and Buland Darwaza (Victory Gateway). We are accompanied by an assiduous caretaker who spends his time shooing the local children away with his big stick. I pick up an unofficial guide, a young man who says he is a student at the mosque. Oddly enough it turns out that he has a part time job as a nick nack vendor at his uncle's stall. As we stand under the gateway I am more preoccupied with the colossal bees nests in the arched roof than shopping; they are huge, bigger than a Mini, great black living masses covering the red sandstone; my guide grows disconsolate in his tugging at my elbow to get to his uncle's stalls.
There comes a time in every holiday, when the phrase 'at leisure' appears. Now I certainly hadn't spent hours in a scale model sized aeroplane to spend any of my time 'at leisure.' 'Aziz' had a plan to fill those vacant hours, he wanted me to go and see his relative's palace in the jungle wilderness of Central India.
'Isn't that a bit far?'
'Ah, No, not far, not really, we can buy a car.'
'How far is it by a car?' (getting the hang of the language by now).
'One hour by train and then maybe only six hours in a jeep we go fastly fastly.'
I was getting visions of the Marabar Caves.
'But that's seven hours to get there and seven hours to get back, we'll only have half an hour there.'
'No, please. We can go by a car bumpy bumpy, fastly, fastly'
Mrs Moore!!!
Remembering the lesson of the Marabar I decline this tempting offer and decide to go to visit Mathura, the birthplace of Krishna, and then cut across country to Deeg where, according to a few lines in my guidebook there is an unspoilt Maharajah's palace. 'Aziz' decides that this is a fine idea and gives up his day off to travel with me.
Mathura is possibly the holiest city in India - a Jerusalem for the sub continent. The temples are magnificent and vast but populated by the dead and dying and closed for much of the time. I found my heart hardening to these Gods who spout compassion and whose followers casually step over and around poverty and death. I have never been a devout Christian but being approached by Krishna groupies asking for money I felt the words 'bugger off' hammer on my lips wanting to get out. 'Aziz' was finding all this a deeply moving experience and not wishing to offend him I did my best to look appropriately impressed but it was tough and no-where was it tougher than in the holy of holies itself, the room where Krishna was born. It's the difference of culture I daresay. We made our shoeless way along a stone corridor and into a small, dark room where a man was chanting and several visitors were prostrate in worship. The focus of their adoration was a stone slab reputed to be the stone upon which the Godhead was born. The walls were adorned in a mixture of tinsel, Hindi film posters and brick a brac including a c.1960 broken wall clock. Holy of Holies?...more of a car boot sale. I stayed for as long as was polite but feeling completely alienated and somewhat of an interloper I left 'Aziz' to his prostration and went outside to be besieged by nick nack sellers.
The main temples were closed but undeterred 'Aziz' led the way up a back street and through a doorway which led into a room with a studious looking man and a cow in it. It was clear that this was another holy place and I was encouraged to sit on the floor and listen to the wise cant of the bespectacled man. I began to suspect that the spectacles and the book in front of him were props - having worked in the theatre for a few years I know a performance when I see it. He droned on incomprehensibly for while and at what was clearly the climax of his speech he whisked back the curtain on the wall behind him to reveal... three dolls of crass construction representing Krishna, Krishna's mum and Vishnu (I think), all enhaloed by tinsel and looking like a politically correct primary school version of a Hamley's window display. Gasps of amazement were clearly expected but it was all I could do not to guffaw. I imploded my reaction so it sounded like a choke which I hoped could be mistaken for a choke of wonderment. The Indian's apparent obsession with form filling in was evident even here and it was de regeur to fill in a piece of paper donating some money to Krishna (what a surprise) in return for which I left with a present of some strange holy popcorn.
We wandered on through the back streets past a building where widows and unloved women are paid a pittance to pray to Krishna. Strange disembodied chanting emanated from shuttered Windows and out into the street where, vying with the hawkers and traffic it disappeared into the dusty air. Another temple came into sight. Carved from red sandstone it seemed the very epitome of Hindu architecture. Long tailed langurs climbed all over it.
I found the building strangely disturbing and was unwilling to go up and peer into the dark interior. A sadhu sat on the steps and eyed me disinterestedly. I became aware of a dry rasping sound close by and, thinking it was one of the monkeys, I turned round to look. There were no monkeys close by, only a pile of rags on the side of the path, twenty yards or so from the temple entrance. I realised with a shock that the sound that was by now flooding every corner of my brain was a death rattle. Congested lungs struggling to oxygenate blood, the stentorious horrific sound of life being squeezed out and death being sucked in. Riveted and repulsed I walked close and saw the rags contained a woman, may 60 or so years old, emaciated and with papery skin. As I looked on she moved a bony arm out from under her coverings and pulled them back exposing her chest. Desiccated breasts and dark puckered skin collapsed in over a concave sternum emerged; her hand trowelled limply over the hollow as if trying to scrape away the shadows that were falling. I did not see her face, only her hand...
I failed to do anything of more use than to gaze like a child at something I was unable to reconcile with my world and my understanding of it. Failed to succour, failed to comfort. People thronged toward the temple to chant for their life's ambitions ( a new TV set, a good marriage) and I stood confronted by nameless horrors in an echo chamber of desperate gasps. My Marabar.
Walking back to the taxi we were accosted by a woman and her child begging for money. In an effort to redeem my squeamish soul I offered a soiled 50 rupee note to the child only to have it snatched away by the woman. Her hand, bony and clawlike, darted out at the money like the coffin money boxes with the snatching hand that I found fascinating as a child. I was irrationally angry at her for being so grasping and predatory but perhaps I was really enraged by the circumstances that made her so.
Travelling west from Mathura via Vrindavan we arrived at the Maharajah's palace in Deeg. Surrounded by a lake and superb gardens the palace is a monument to wealth on a scale that makes the National Lottery look like the tombola at a church bazaar. Occupied by the Maharajah until the 1950's the palace has an air of the Miss Havershams about it. The textiles are grey with dust and age; the vast punkas in the main hall hang still, their fraying presence like the ghost of punkas past. Its was to be another shoeless tour despite the hundreds of bees buzzing their last on the floor and the liberal covering of bat guano on much of the furniture.
It was a wonderful, quiet and restorative time wondering around the vast buildings and grounds of Deeg. We stayed until the late afternoon, unwilling to abandon such an oasis and meandering happily through the formal gardens were 2,000 fountains waited in parched expectation for the Diwali festival in August when they spout coloured water.
Driving back to Agra it occurred to me that the only things that I had seen that were stacked in neat and tidy patterns were the cow pats drying for use as fuel. All uniformly round and of uniform size and all laid out in intricate artistic patterns or stacked in little round huts of shit. Elsewhere was the usual chaotic, litter strewn mess - Agra itself resembling a shanty town built on a land fill site on either side of an open sewer - but the cow pats piles are immaculate.
There was a spectacularly lavish wedding that evening at the hotel. I watched the bridegroom make his slow progression on horseback as his relatives and entourage danced in front of him. Soon everyone was joining and I felt the images of the day coming together in a life affirming ritual that was all embracing and joyous. I admired the openness of the wedding guests and their willingness to invite strangers to partake. Was this the real India? Perhaps it was, although most of the wedding guests seemed to be from Kent.
Leaving Agra early the following morning to go to Jaipur I was struck once again by the number of men sitting about looking thoughtful. Suddenly the truth dawned... they are not meditating but defecating. I saw one man squatting happily in the middle of a piece of open land reading his morning paper...all he needed was the toilet...and the door...and walls ... and toilet paper...Perhaps we over complicate such a mundane human function, dressing it up with pine fragranced quilted sterile duo flush technology. But I can't help feeling that just squatting and evacuating wherever and whenever one feels is not right either.
The two things that make Jaipur an essential stop are the Ambar Fort and the Royal Observatory ( the Janta Mantar). The latter is an extraordinary Escher-esque collection of giant sized astrological and astronomical instruments built in 1726 by Sawai Jai Singh. The Observatory gardens feel slightly surreal and I couldn't help wondering how a culture that had made such impressive advances in the science of the day hadn't managed to widen that culture out and build upon it as the Europeans did. Everywhere one is struck by the gulf between available technology and the everyday conditions of the environment. Hoardings advertising mobile phones, the latest in digital technology, loom over leprous beggars, cow pat piles, camel power transport, open sewers and cows rummaging through rotting vegetables dumped at the side of the road. It is one of the (many) mysteries of India.
As most of the tourists visiting Ambar Fort waited to catch the next elephant I decided to opt for a quick (if shattering journey by jeep). It was fast but there were points when I was in danger of falling out of the back as the driver sped up the steep and narrow road.
Once there the usual rigmarole of shoe-taking off begins but I was now becoming recalcitrant and the sight of several brown rats running about did not encourage me to shuffle off my footwear. I was reluctantly toying with my laces when the instruction to take off socks as well put the lid on it. I refused and by doing so missed out on a visit to a Temple dedicated to Kali, consort of Shiva. A Black Goddess with a macabre taste in jewellery (a necklace of skulls), Kali featured as a godhead demanding blood sacrifice in Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom and inspired the Thaggis (or 'a cult of ferocious assassins' as Nayland Smith would say). Not exactly endearing.
Ambar is vast beyond belief, it would make most English Stately homes look like a Wendy House. The fortifications stretch on for miles and the halls and courtyards are overwhelming in both their scale and their decorative detail. Tired and glutted with things to marvel at I was ready for the peaceful trudge down the hill on the back of an elephant.
Riding (or rather sitting on) an elephant at Ambar is a confusing experience. I was aware of Mark Shand's campaign to get better facilities and treatment for the patient pachyderms that plod up and down to the fort all day but I didn't feel that not going on an elephant was going to matter a jot in the long run. Only in India one week and already I was feeling resigned and hopeless. So, feeling a bit sheepish I clambered aboard and we started down at a stately pace, the gentle rocking motion and creaking of the howdah perfectly in keeping with my mood. Half way down we saw an elephant struggling to manage, one of its rear legs seemed locked up, arthritis perhaps, the tourists on board were oblivious to the peculiarity of its gait and enjoying their ride. I leaned out and examined my elephant's leg anxiously.
Returning to the coach I was again surrounded by the ubiquitous nick nack sellers but by now my English reserve had evaporated and I stormed on roundly abusing anyone who got in my way. It was a new mode for me, not charming, not enlightened but very effective.
The following day I left. Flying out over the plain of the Ganges, the holy river that snakes through India carrying with it the faith, prayers, effluent, washing and dead of a nation out to the sea where the large waters engulf what the land has not consumed.
Returning home I have found myself less restless than before, happier to be who I am, where I am. India has not engendered in me a desire to burn joss sticks or chant for a new car, it has made me appreciate the car I have and the roads I drive it on....smooth roads, like toilet tissue.