Akbar’s Tomb

At breakfast, I sat with Liz, Yvette, Erika, and Jennifer, and we got into a health-related conversation that ranged from Chinese herbal medicine to why underwire bras are not a healthy choice. After we’d been talking for some time, Shantum showed up and headed toward our tables greeting everyone with a Big Smile, and Erika said loud and clear, “Hey, Shantum, we’re talking about breast health. Do you want to join us?”
Still smiling, Shantum said, “I’ll be sitting as far away from you as possible.”

I later checked my watch and noticed that it was close to nine thirty, the time that we were supposed to meet up to get on the bus, so I left the breakfast table. I hopped up, set off, and exited through the glass restaurant doors. On the patio shaded by a wooden arbor covered with vines, I observed that despite the time, even Shantum was still sitting at an outdoor table and chatting away. He really did sit as far away from us as possible. I sat down at that table, with Shantum, Gail, and Sherry.

After a few minutes of conversation, Sherry asked Shantum, “What time is it?”
“I have no idea,” Shantum said, reaching for a watch. He had been tired a few days ago, and now that we’d finished with the Taj Mahal, he was very carefree and sitting back in his chair. Sherry pointed out that it must be almost nine thirty, and Shantum fumbled in his kurta pocket casually saying, “Oh, is it already?” He pulled out his watch and said it was nine twenty-eight.
Sherry jokingly, with a smile, said, “You don’t even know what time it is? You’re a terrible tour guide!”

Shantum smiled, giggled, and cheerfully said, “You’re right; I shouldn’t be a tour guide.” He was like an absent-minded and eccentric college professor at this moment. As always, he was free of worry. “Worrying is useless,” I’ve heard Shantum say a few times. When he climbed aboard the bus, Shantum smiled and announced, “The time is now officially nine thirty exactly.”

Little booths even in the touristy metropolis of Agra are made of sticks with a tarpaulin for a roof. When we stopped at a row of shops that included an ATM machine, I looked out the window and noticed a couple of skinny, petite guys hanging out in front of a typical booth with the shiny strings of tobacco or peppermint packets, and one of the two guys had his arm around the shoulders of the other, whose head rested on his companion’s chest. If I saw that in the States, I’d know they were gay. Here in India, it is socially unacceptable for opposite sexes to show affection in public but perfectly acceptable for a man to hold a man’s hand, or a woman to hold a woman’s hand. In Bodh Gaya, I sometimes saw Tibetan monks holding hands, and while I’ve read that homosexuality is a phenomenon in Buddhist monasteries, it’s not something the monks would want people to know about, so I figured that’s not why they were holding hands; it was more likely because they didn’t want to get separated in the crowd.

Erika returned to the bus from the ATM, and before sitting back down in front of me, she said, “What do you think of the two guys at the booth?”
I said, “Gay or straight?” I suggested that they might be a gay couple, but both Erika and Ann reminded me how unaccepted that was, so they thought they weren’t a gay couple. Ann said she thought showing so much affection to the same sex in public and to be absolutely against showing affection to the opposite sex in public is “pretty skewed.” I didn’t put it into words, but I was thinking about how our society emphasizes romantic and sexual relationships over friendship, even trivializes friendship, which I find extremely unfortunate.

I said, referring to the Indian way, “It’s less macho, which is a good thing.” Erika nodded at this.
“It’s a different kind of macho,” Ann said with a smile.
“Oh, I didn’t think of that,” I said, and proceeded to think of it.

Certainly Shantum hugging his friend at the Taj last night was genuine, not “a different kind of macho.” But I can see how other behavior, such as the two guys at the booth, are examples of misogynist creeps flaunting their attitude of: I don’t want to hold hands with a mere woman in public, but with my male friends, I have a genuine bond. Such an attitude is reminiscent of platonic Hellenistic Greece, a society in which men considered friendship between men better than opposite-sex relationships, and in which misogynist males considered it impossible for men and women to be friends. True, in that Greek culture male homosexuality was very acceptable, but creeps of any sexual orientation can practice this macho attitude.

You know that Agra is a big city because it has traffic lights. The only times I see traffic lights in India is in the big cities, and even they do not have crosswalks or lights for pedestrians. Many traffic lights, or some, anyway, don’t work. I just saw, in front of a colorful Hindu temple, a broken traffic light hanging loosely with black wires; it was in pieces and obviously hasn’t been used in a long time, and I wished someone would just take the ugly thing down. It did not improve the temple’s ambiance or aesthetics. I recall that when we entered Varanasi, we came to a very busy intersection with traffic lights that didn’t work, and a cop stood in the center, near the statue, and directed traffic.

Now we’ve been sitting on the bus and waiting for a train to pass by. One train passed, we moved slowly forward, and the crossing gates lowered again for another train, one that hasn’t arrived, with the result that a plethora of people are walking or riding their bikes across the tracks anyway, slipping around the crossing gates. Some of the pedestrians hold big bundles on top of their heads while they walk across the tracks. We’ve been waiting for a while, and still no train.

2
Still in Agra, we stopped at a sweet shop. The sign over the shop says Panchhi Petha, and I think that is what the sweets are called; Shantum told us that Agra is famous for this kind of sweet. It consists of thin and slightly sticky beige wafers with bits of pistachios in the center. At first I wasn’t going to get any, but then I thought it would be appropriate to share at work. I told Shantum, including the part about sharing the sweets at work, and I asked for a small box of the sesame-flavored sweets, and he served as translator for the shopkeeper. I bought the box of treats, big enough to hold many wafers, for sixty-five rupees, less than two dollars.

The next stop after the sweet shop was Akbar’s Tomb. Akbar was the son of Emperor Humayun and became an emperor after him; he also had his tomb built just outside Agra, in a town called Sikandra. The tomb is made of red sandstone and looks much like the buildings at the Taj other than the white marble tomb itself. Akbar’s son had this tomb built for his dad in 1613; I suspect that perhaps he was impatient to become the ruler.

Judging by Akbar’s Tomb and the Taj, the Mughals were really into building elaborate tombs, in sharp contrast with Hindus and Buddhists, including myself, who would rather have their corpses cremated and the ashes scattered. I think that’s a much more humble choice, one that unlike a grave doesn’t take up lots of space. Cremation and scattering the ashes is also a choice compatible with interconnectedness; we are all one, all part of planet Earth, and if your ashes are scattered, then your body returns to the earth. Even more ecological than cremation are the sky burials in Tibet; the body is taken to a cliff and cut up and mixed with barley, and vultures gobble up their din-din. OK, I said it was more ecological, not less gross.

We entered through the frontal building, a two-story red gatehouse that alone is breathtaking with its archways and mosaics. Centered is a section with a really tall archway that forms a niche that in turn contains an archway on each floor. To each side of this are two archways, one on each storey, and the upper archway contains a balcony. Above are white minarets. Mosaic tiles cover the building and form floral and abstract patterns in white, blue, yellow and red. It is reminiscent of the gatehouse at the Taj Mahal.

Leaving the gatehouse of Akbar’s Tomb, we stepped out to a sort of patio: a space paved with large stone tiles on which monkeys sat, walked, and played. The monkeys mesmerized me and instead of mindfully listening to Shantum, I had my camera out almost the entire time he told the group about the tomb. Many monkeys were babies, and I delightedly watched them sitting in their mother’s laps, or playing with each other. Unfortunately, a man wearing a uniform and carrying a long stick came along and scared off the monkeys by hitting the pavement with the stick. Bully. Some of the adult monkeys quickly scooped up their babies, and the babies hung from the adults’ bellies as the parents ran off to the edges of the patio and onto the lawn.

Beyond the illicit monkey hangout was a sunken rectangle, an empty tank that might only be filled with water during and shortly after the monsoon. The paved courtyard stretched all the way to the tomb itself, and I headed for the centered mausoleum after Shantum finished talking. I walked straight ahead, noticing that on either side of the long patio is a garden occupied by countless blackbucks, and I gawked at the animals for some time. Too bad Peter wasn’t around with his binoculars. These animals had antlers sticking straight out but in wavy lines, “like creatures out of a fantasy novel,” as Gail put it. The males with the antlers were mostly medium brown and the females pale, sort of a blonde color. Small, young trees also dotted the lawn, and beyond them a red stone fence surrounded the tomb’s complex.

Ahead of us loomed the actual tomb itself, another awesome and beautiful building with a dome, many cupolas, and symmetrical mosaic tile patterns covering the façade. It was also made of red sandstone, and the mosaics used the same color scheme as the gatehouse. Like the gatehouse, this building had a high central arch, but it was flanked on each side by a long red one-story wing with a row of archways. Above the first floor were rows and rows, on three levels, of small exterior archways in sandstone, topped with whipped cream-like white domes. Centered above the huge archway was a white structure with a row of white arched windows, and above this were white cupolas.

As I came closer to the building, I took a good look at some of the mosaics, which formed stylized flowers and more abstract designs. Red and white zigzag patterns like rickrack marched up narrow pilasters. I arrived at the central archway, where the entrance was the size of a standard door, though the archway around it was filled in with a white metal grid; even this metal was flamboyantly patterned, in little flowery hexagons.

We took our shoes off before going in, and it was much darker inside than out. I stopped in my tracks. The front room was domed and groined and covered with a blissful abundance of colorful floral and geometric patterns. Some of the patterns, painted directly onto the walls and framed with other narrow little patterns, were shaped like vases or trees, while others were shaped like flowers. Amid all these busy designs, a lapis-colored strip wrapped all the way around the room, with a metallic gold carving of Arabic words, probably a quote from the Koran. Some parts of the walls were painted with a metallic gold background and a colorful floral foreground. Abstract patterned grillwork filled in arched windows overhead.

The interior of Akbar’s tomb was so much more colorful and busily decorated than the Taj Mahal, I couldn’t help thinking, and I am very partial to color and mixed patterns. The most prominent shades were red, deep blue and metallic gold. I could perhaps find fabrics in vaguely similar patterns and colors and create a patchwork wall hanging or garment. There’s an idea: an Akbar’s Tomb costume for Halloween. Over our heads hung a large old filigree-like lamp suspended from chains. Feroza said, “As ignorant as I may sound, I prefer this to the Taj. I’m sure the experts would disapprove.” I consider it a valid reaction; this tomb is the same style of architecture, but with more color.

Beyond the fabulous front room was a plain, narrow tunnel with grey walls and a ceiling that formed a curved arch. I walked along this corridor feeling anxious to get to a more spacious room, and it led to a semi-dark chamber containing the casket. Although this was the focal point of this piece of architecture, the casket room was so plain and simple compared to the colorful front room, that I didn’t spend as much time in it.

Shantum meant for us to stop at Akbar’s Tomb for a sitting, but gorgeous Mughal architecture distracted us, as did the monkeys, and the blackbucks on the lawn, so the sitting didn’t happen. We all eventually ended up to the right of the front entrance, in a space reminiscent of a cloister because its archways are open to the outdoors. The walls were simply white and light brown and were not covered with patterns or mosaics. Archways met at corners and formed groined vaults overhead, and that is the most elaborate detail in this part of the tomb.

In the cloister, Shantum told us that if you stood in a certain corner and spoke to the wall, someone in another certain corner would be able to hear you. This reminded me of a section of marble tile in a government building in Washington, DC, where you can stand and hear clearly what people are whispering on the other side of the room; that was probably due to echoes. We gave Shantum’s experiment some trial and error and finally I heard Dean’s voice come through. It was like a sort of Renaissance precursor to the telephone.

“Hallo! Money!” Some beggar children go straight to the point. They stood on the other side of a chain link fence separating what looked like a public park or garden from the parking lot that occupied our bus in front of the beautiful tomb. I was glad they had friendly smiles.

3
We stopped in the state of Rajasthan for lunch. Rajasthan has a plethora of camels, it seems, primarily pulling carts piled high with stuff bundled in a white cloth. This was on the highway, no less. In front of the restaurant, a camel was available to ride; Gail and Sherry did it. A musician and child dancers wore traditional flashy colorful Rajasthani costumes. The tunics were quite distinctive: I noticed that they had a horizontal seam at the waist and a skirt gathered into it, and the garment fastened on the side. Otherwise the costume included trousers, a turban, and jewelry, and it vaguely reminded me of nineteenth century illustrations from the days of the British Raj.

We filed into a simple little roadside restaurant, passed many tables occupied by Indian families, and went into a back room all to ourselves. Except for drinks, Shantum ordered for us, as usual, and this time I asked if they had banana laasis, the yogurt beverage that tastes somewhat like a milkshake, but the closest is a banana shake, so I asked for a regular laasi. I swore off ice cream a couple years ago, when I heard that it contains saturated fats, which clot arteries and thereby cause heart attacks.

Although Gail and Sherry intended to ride the camel before lunch, servers brought our food out promptly. Shantum said, “Look, Indian fast food!” We listened to Shantum say a prayer, or “say grace,” as he put it, before we ate. I suppose it wasn’t a big faux pas that I had drunk some water and laasi beforehand. We ate yummy south Indian food, in capacious metal plates with little metal dishes around the edges, and the food helped clear my sinuses.

Next door to the restaurant was a charming little shop, but after our Gratuitous Shopping Spree at the huge store in Agra last night, I genuinely had no desire to spend money anymore. That did not, however, stop me from wandering around the shop. I saw Feroza near the front counter; she felt obligated to buy something, because the shopkeeper had been so kind as to give her his watch. I looked at books and at more blank journals like the ones I purchased in Varanasi, and I walked further into the store to admire embroidered patchwork banners made from old clothing. To my left was a flight of stairs, and I realized that the shop wasn’t as tiny as I had at first thought. I climbed the stairs and saw colorful puppets and, as if we hadn’t seen enough of them, shawls of many colors. Yvette was trying to decide between two shawls, and I was not much help with her decision. My taste generally leans toward the boldest colors and patterns, and the more beads and sequins the better. Shantum came along and said we would be leaving in a minute.

“OK, I’m trying to decide which shawl,” Yvette said. “Do you think this one is the right choice?”

Shantum was clearly in a hurry but nonetheless smiling, and he said, “Yes, it’s perfect, get it!” I laughed, because I could tell he was only saying that because he wanted us to hurry up.

Back on the bus, we passed dried cow patties arranged in a sort of box, except the base was wider than the top, and it was perfectly symmetrical and on the sides was scratched with abstract patterns reminiscent of the mosaic patterns at the Taj Mahal and Akbar’s Tomb. Design, decoration, and ornament can be applied everywhere, even on cow patties saved up for fuel.