Burning the Inheritance

I think it is safe to say that the Taj Mahal was the one place in India we were most excited about visiting.  For those who may not have spent countless hours watching NatGeo documentaries about all of the intricacies of the Taj Mahal’s construction or the love story that lies at the heart of it, a quick primer. 

The Taj Mahal was built by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan I, under whose rule the Mughal empire reached its peak of its architectural achievements and cultural glory.  Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in 1631 in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, a Muslim Persian princess.  Mumtaz Mahal died while giving birth to their 13^th child, reportedly after 19 years of blissful marriage.  Prior to her death, she reportedly had the Shah promise to build a monument to their love, which, after her death, he proceeded to do over the next 22 years.

The Taj Majal is a masterwork of architecture and engineering which had to overcome some significant challenges due to its scale and location on the river Yamuna. (If you are interested, it really is worth the time spent watching the NatGeo documentaries which detail the unique methods employed in its design and construction.) 

The background story here is that Shah Jahan nearly bankrupted the monarchy in the construction of the Taj Mahal and reportedly had plans to build a second “black” mausoleum for himself across the river from the Taj Mahal, but was ultimately arrested by his son Aurangzeb and imprisoned at the Agra Fort.  Legend has it that Shah Jahan had a cell which afforded him a view of the Taj Mahal just up the river where his one true love Mumtaz Mahal rested.

At the end of our last “episode”, we had completed our whirlwind tour of Rajasthan and arrived at our hotel in Agra in the early evening, at which point our Tour with Drivers-India officially concluded.  But, we had made arrangements through our driver, Mr. Sunder, to engage a guide for the Taj Majal tour the next day (turned out to be a great recommendation), whom we would meet after checking in.

We were staying at the Coral Tree Boutique Homestay (sort of reminiscent of the Very Best Exotic Marigold Hotel?), which we had booked ourselves. For the most part, we only saw the Very Best Coral Tree Boutique Homestay in the dark, but it was comfortable and particularly suited to our needs as it was located only a kilometer from the east gate of the Taj Mahal and it was affordably priced at $50 for the night.

The Coral Tree was a sort of rambling funky bohemian kind of place with a nice garden and a color palette of strong primary colors accented by some interesting art work. Our room “Semal” (which means Silk) and where we spent very little time was spacious and clean with a large statue of Ganesh just outside keeping an eye on things. The hotel had a great on-site restaurant which was quite good. We had dinner there our first night (really great not to have to trudge back out!) as well as breakfast after visiting the Taj Mahal the next day (included in our room rate).

So, after checking in to our hotel, we met our guide (Tarmenda) and took an abbreviated evening tour to get oriented for the next day which would start very early.  We drove to the Agra Fort, which was closed, and got a look of the fort and the tower where Shah Jahan was supposedly imprisoned until his death.  Interestingly enough, we caught a glimpse through the trees of the Taj Mahal just up the river where we would find ourselves in just a few hours. 

On the way back to our hotel, we visited an artisan’s shop recommended by Tarmenda where they still have masters of the inlaid stone work for which Agra is known.  It was all incredibly beautiful and incredibly expensive, but we found a small piece we liked which was only absurdly (rather than ridiculously) expensive and made a hasty retreat back to our hotel before we did anything more stupid or costly.

We had booked tickets for the opening of the Taj Majal (ostensibly the 7:00 AM slot) but, on the advice of our guide Tarmenda, we left our hotel, which was only about a mile from the Taj Majal at  5:15 AM.  Tarmenda steered us away from the Taj Majal down the street a bit to where he got us onto a shuttle cart which got us to the entrance of the Taj Mahal much more quickly than walking would have and even at this early hour, there were quite a few people moving in that direction.

We had been growing increasingly apprehensive about the tickets we had purchased some weeks prior as we had received a confirmation but never received the actual e tickets.  Because of this, Tarmenda had us join the entrance queue while he waited in line to purchase our tickets, a smart move as, after he caught up to us with our tickets, we were among the first hundred or so people admitted through the gate at 6:00 AM.

Once through the entrance gate, Tarmenda wisely suggested to us that we take a seat on a bench and to take a few minutes to slowly absorb it all.  I’m not sure that I have the words to describe what this place was like. 

While the Taj Mahal building itself is incredibly beautiful (really verging on surreal), its placement on the river and everything around it – the gatehouse and walls, the huge garden and reflecting pools, the ornate red temples which flank it – all serve to emphasize its massive scale and its pure and simple beauty.  

Knowing that we had a long day of travel ahead of us, we were in no hurry to leave, so we wandered and lingered for a while as the sun continued to rise and the color of the Taj Mahal went from grey to rose to amber to white. 

We eventually queued up to go through the Mahal and got to see the beautiful stone inlay work we had seen and heard about the night before, but at a scale we couldn’t imagine. 

It honestly felt like time stood still for a while but, after what was actually only a couple of hours (but seemed far longer) we slowly made our way out and back to our hotel still very much basking in lingering feeling of the place.