Delhi, Agra and Jaipur are three cities not that close to each other. They are considered to be the corners of the ‘golden triangle’ in India, and the only reason for that is transportation. There is no airport in Agra (sorry wrong- there is a military one for the likes of Diana and Chelsea) and you can only reach Agra from Delhi and /or Jaipur with 5-hour drive. They are interesting cities in their own rights and there is not any particular cultural connection between them.
Firstly Delhi is the capital city and like most capital cities more organized, cleaner, and more city like than the rest of the country. The parliament and foreign embassies are there so those kind of people need to have more 9 to 5 jobs, they need to see the more official side of life, hence the organized but not very interesting towns. I am probably wrong about Delhi but we had a patronizing guide who did not want me to see the old part of the town, so we saw the aforementioned type of ‘New’ Delhi.
The second stop is Agra. Agra exists because of Taj Mahal et.al. There is the Taj Mahal, and the fort, in which Shah Jehan was imprisoned until he died overlooking the Taj where the favourite wife was buried. You enter the town from an insignificant point. You go through rickshaw repair areas, shanty towns, caravan stops for lorries with black pompons dangling from their side mirrors, Pani puri sellers, bicycles carrying big loads of something, human tuk -tuks with their lean legs and cheap towel wrapped heads and then on the left towards the horizon the dry season dribble of the smelly Yamuna river with silvery mud, a bloated dead dog, crows circling some rubbish piles behind the walls, you see ‘the pearl’. Taj Mahal. It is called the teardrop, etc. Because it is on a flat area and you can see it from miles away. It is like Big Ben, Blackpool tower; The Eifel tower wherever you look you can see a glimpse of it. By the time you get to see it you almost had enough of the hype.
The best time to go and visit the Taj is between October and January, After Jan. ( as they call it here) it gets too hot. We went there in March and the sweat was meandering through my back into my thinnest linen trousers. The best day to see it is Wednesday. It is closed on Friday, you can go into the nearby mosque only to pray and it is closed after the evening payer. It gets very crowded on Saturday Sunday, and Monday because people take a day off for the tour, Tuesday is better than Monday and Wednesday is best day. Thursday gets more crowded since Friday is closed. If you managed to get there on the right day, the best time to see it is at sunrise. It was when we went there 6.00 o’clock. You need to stay in a nearby hotel since you need to get up early to join the queue. We got up at 5.20, out of the hotel 5.30 and there were people already up and on their busses with sleepy eyes and jumpers. You have to park outside in a parking area and after that you can either walk, take a tuk-tuk, a camel, or a minibus kind of thing. From a certain point onwards everybody has to walk. The Taj has to be protected from pollution and some years ago it was bathed with milk and sandal wood powder – an ancient recipe for the ladies to enhance their glow. When you do the circumpreambulation, you get out and back to the hotel for a hearty well-earned breakfast. Either go around the fort and see it from where the husband watched until the day he died or start the drive to Jaipur. It takes 5 hours.
I insisted that we stopped on the way after 2.5 hours we had coke ( our standard drink where ever we went) Nick and Kitty had chips and spring rolls. The driver knew where to stop, the food was good but there was group of Italians and we had to wait for them. Surprisingly they ate in silence and left immediately).
In the morning after you have washed off your bindi on your forehead go to the Wind Palace. It is a latticed façade of a building for ladies to sit and look out to the streets in Bazaar days. I never understand people’s obsession with women, they are almost scared of them. In every decade men put them behind lattices, veils, carpets, saris, so other men would not see them. This one is a 4-5-storey sand stone pink building, it has little green windows where you can sit cross-legged and look at the elephants, camels, bangle sellers, carpet bargaining sounds of the men below. There are floors of little green windows, star shaped openings the wind comes through. It is 40’c outside, by the latticed stars there is a little breeze to cool these heavily costumed ladies watching the bazaar go by.
When there is little hunger and thirst brake time we went to City Palace. In the coolness of its café came a man with long skinny trousers and a red flirty skirt. He has one of those turbans with a bow and clear honey eyes on a velvety brown complexion. He has an instrument, which can be the grandpapa of a violin; it is that simple, that hand made only three strings. He started playing behind Kitty’s chair, one of the saddest songs I have heard recently. Our guide joins in mumbling. In the heat of Jaipur between chips and Coca Colas we had ordered he sings an ancient hamlet song
When I hear the whistle of the train.
My heart flutters,
It may have my man on it,
I am left behind here for so long
My heart flutters
When I hear the whistle of the train
He may come to take me away.
This little song he plays with small strokes of the bow, tiny bags of blue dangles from the neck of the violin grandpapa, he sings and gives a little twirl; the red skirt whirls around him. Coins in the little bags tinkle lightly.
It is almost too much for me. The heat, the sand, the dust, the story of all those ladies, the sadness behind the lattice waiting for the market day, waiting for the train whistle can make me cry for all and each of the women who have lived there. Luckily there is a crying child and an elephant shaped balloon to bring me back to reality. There are more things to see.
PS: The man's photographs are on Facebook
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