The Taj Mahal

I’ve woken up on the train and daylight has arrived. I drew back the window curtains, and some of the cows look sleepy. They haven’t had their morning chai. I saw a couple of huge sarus cranes standing in a ditch only a few feet away, just off the tracks. After I drew aside the curtains facing the aisle, a guy who sat diagonally from me gawked at me, so I pulled the curtains closed again. I should be accustomed to that by now, but it’s first thing in the morning. I am not an exhibit.

The train is running late according to an older guy with a beard, a blue turban, and a high-pitched voice. This isn’t surprising; when we arrived at the platform in Lucknow, a different train still sat where our train should have been waiting. We originally were supposed to arrive in Agra at seven thirty, but we’re traveling on what Dean called “India time.” I hope we go straight to the hotel; I’d love to take a shower, preferably a steaming hot one, and change into different clothing.

Looking out the window reminds me that things which are more or less stupa-shaped include neatly arranged piles of cow patties (also reminiscent of bee hives), Shiva linga, rice haystacks (also reminiscent of Monet’s haystacks), bells, champagne glasses turned upside down (oh, I haven’t seen those in India), and neatly arranged piles of tires.

This train has an unfortunate stench of urine, thanks to the toilets. I’m struck by the sharp contrast between the posh hotel and the sleeper train. Despite the urine, I’m amused by this contrast, rather than disturbed as I had been at the Radisson. I’m glad that we’ve encountered ups and downs in India, both poverty and wealth and almost everything in between. It’s important to see different aspects of the same country. India is full of contrasts and contradictions.

3
We reached our train station in Agra, and it was a great a relief to climb off the train at last! The porters wore red or bright pink (in other words, faded red) shirts and pants. They balanced the suitcases on their heads and carried them off. A group of Muslim guys in white fez stood on the platform not far from us.

I followed our group, and we climbed on a new bus, one that does not have the ornate wooden carving along the edge of the luggage rack that our home-away-from-home had. Sigh. Remember: detachment. On the bus, leaving the train station, we passed, among other shops, the Buddha Tea Centre.

At last, we have arrived at the Trident Hilton Hotel in Agra. Nice: this place has lots of flowers. Flanking the front doors outside are foot tall square containers of water with rose petals floating on top, and I could see frogs plopping below. Inside the lobby are small square vases full of fragrant yellow roses and tabletop bowls containing floating little yellow flowers. On the wooden arbor that, like a cloister, runs along the hotel’s entire inner courtyard are bright pink flowers, similar to fuchsia, growing in clusters on vines overhead.

Centered in the hotel’s inner courtyard is a swimming pool that appears to be popular with old white people, or at least the lawn chairs are. Beyond that is a long water fountain surrounded by careful landscaping and small trees. I’ve gone to my room, looked around, and taken a lukewarm shower rather than the steaming hot one I foolishly anticipated. My favorite things about this hotel is that my room has a bright yellow loveseat with bright purple silk cushions, and matching purple silk cushions lie on the bed. We’ve had lunch in the hotel restaurant: an enormous buffet lunch that caters to both Western and Indian tastes. I primarily ate Indian food, but I tried a kind of short, squat, off-white rice we haven’t seen previously on this trip, rather than the usual white basmati.

4

On the bus ride to the Taj, I was startled to see a shop called The Indiana Gallery. It is startling because I was born in the state of Indiana and grew up there. And now I’ve seen a booth with the sign “Indiana Café.” I’ve gone from Indiana to India.

The moment a tour bus halts, wallahs eagerly approach it. We’ve stopped at an ATM, and sure enough we have wallahs. And now those of us who are still here truly are tourists without a doubt and can make no claims to being pilgrims: the Taj Mahal has nothing to do with the Buddha, beyond sharing the same country. And the Mughal invaders helped chase Buddhism out of India. Um, never mind. The Buddhists’ own arrogant and corruption, I must remember, had a lot to do with the demise of Buddhism in India.

5
We couldn’t take the tour bus all the way to the Taj, so we climbed aboard a cute little electric bus and walked across a small bridge over a stinky sewer I mean river and then stood outside the gates to the Taj Mahal. The tall outer walls were red sandstone with domed gazebo-like structures at the corners and a huge looming wooden gate that looked quite dramatic and medieval, probably because it is.

Starting at the big gates, we had two lanes to go through; one was so a man could search men, and the other was so a woman could search women. She used one of those security wands like at an airport, and we had to place our bags on a little wooden table so she could check inside. As we waited in line, someone explained that places like this are attractive to terrorists.

Done with security, we entered a red sandstone courtyard, where I gawked, with my mouth slightly open, at red stone structures that are elaborately carved and arched and domed. To our right was a large reddish building in the Mughal style, and this was clearly the direction in which we should be walking. Shantum led the way and said, “We are in the Taj Mahal complex.” I had always thought the Taj Mahal was one building, but obviously it is several. The gate and exterior walls were part of a big structure that wraps all the way around the complex, like the walls encasing a medieval castle. Otherwise, the red gatehouse stood before us, and beyond that were two more dark stone buildings to the left and right, with paths branching off the main central path; a few yards further down stands the famous white marble building in the center, with two red stone buildings to either side.

Excited in the midst of such stunning architecture, I almost felt like skipping, as we all headed toward the red gatehouse and walked through its gigantic central archway. Inside it was shadowy, but not too shadowy to see the elaborate and colorful mosaics covering the walls. An archway opposite from the one we had entered framed the familiar-looking white mausoleum in the far distance. We stepped through that archway, and I thought the Taj looked artificial, like a flat stage backdrop painted onto the sky. I was anxious to get closer to it, expecting it would look considerably more realistic up close. Shantum talked to us about the Taj while we stood in a great courtyard in front of it. He said that the official tour guides would tell you that it took twenty years to build the Taj, because that sounds so impressive. But Shantum smilingly said, “That is B.S.!” which got a good laugh out of us.

Dean said, “That’s very American!” referring to the expression that I would so not have expected to hear out of Shantum’s mouth, especially given the high-class British accent with which he speaks English.

Inside the Taj is the mausoleum of Mumtaz Mahal, a wife who died having her fourteenth child, and the Taj was made “in memory of the beauty of our love.” Jahan experienced a major depression after her death, and what better thing is there to do when you’re depressed than build elaborate architecture. Another mausoleum resides in the Taj: namely, Shah Jahan’s tomb. “He meant to build a black marble Taj inside the white one,” Shantum said, “and the foundation for it has been found. However, his son imprisoned him and the only asymmetrical part of the whole Taj is his tomb. Mumtaz’s is in the center, and Shah Jahan’s coffin is at the end, on the north side.”

We looked at the rectangular pool stretching out between the gatehouse and the mausoleum while Shantum talked. It is centered in front of the white tomb, between it and the gatehouse where we stood. “The most important structure is at the center. There’s a saying that the throne of Allah is at the end of a garden, as is the Taj. During the time of the Mughals, this garden contained many trees, such as cyprus, and many flowers and birds. There were also drum houses where musicians entertained people.” I guess the depressed emperor liked to party in order to forget his grief.

We agreed to meet at a certain place and time after our meanderings. “We are not there, but we are here,” Shantum said.

We walked down the white path toward the basin that lies in front of the Taj. I think I’ve spent enough time with the Taj to call it by its first name. When I look at the white structure from a distance, it looks so surreal, even after we’ve passed through the gatehouse, as though the mausoleum is a picture rather than an actual, large building looming in front of us. I had to stand and gawk enthusiastically, of course, and Feroza said, “Look!” pointing downward. I thought she was pointing at the white marble paving stones, which were large and square, and right there in the center of the group I began to hop on them as though they were for hopscotch, and she said, “No, at the water.”

“She’s doing fine,” Shantum said. I’m not the only one with a playful and childlike side.

“The Taj Mahal is reflected in the water,” Feroza said.

I finally looked at the water, and said, “Oh!” Sure enough: it was like a mirror for the white building that faced us straight on.

We first got together at a red stone building to the left of the complex, a little bit before the mausoleum. It was originally a music building but is now the museum, where at first the electricity wasn’t working and a tour guide beamed a big flashlight in front of the display cases as he explained the displayed items. We looked at brightly colored miniature paintings and mosaic tiles. Next we went back outside, continued heading for the white mausoleum, and put blue paper slippers on over our shoes before going up a few steps to the white platform on which the white mausoleum was built. We then followed Shantum toward the building itself.

Up close, seeing the mausoleum at different angles, it indeed no longer looked artificial. It resembled a huge carved mass of white marble, but something the viewer doesn’t notice from a distance is that the façade has bits of bright color, thanks to flowery mosaics made from precious stones. In the sunlight, some of the stones sparkled.

We entered the dimly lit interior, where a few pigeons sat up on a ledge and cooed. Yes, that’s right; there are pigeons inside the Taj Mahal. In the dim light, I could see that the white marble walls were decorated with more stone mosaics and rose to a dome high overhead. We looked through a carved white screen at the symbolic caskets. Shantum said that the bodies (of Mumtaz and Jahan, not pigeons) really are located in an underground crypt, beneath the Taj. The marble caskets at which we gazed are for show.

We split up when we were done inside, and I wandered all the way around the building, taking pictures while the sun set dramatically, streaking the sky with vivid orange and pink that looked especially breathtaking behind white marble minarets. Behind the Taj was a river, and at some distance I saw a gazebo-like structure. I headed for a mosque that was just to the left of the mausoleum, kicked off my shoes, went up the few steps, and entered on the right side, which someone had said was the women’s side. The mosque is red sandstone rather than white marble, and it is liberally embellished with archways and mosaics and floral patterns and minarets galore.

After wandering around the Taj complex, we sat on a ledge in front of the mausoleum, Shantum rang the bell, and we silently watched the setting sun behind the Taj. The trees around us were noisy with the chatter of parakeets. I watched one bright green parakeet, and twice I zoomed in to take a picture, but by the time the camera was ready, the bird flew off. I put the camera down and mindfully observed our surroundings. In particular, I watched the Taj while the pink and purple sky darkened, although periodically my eyes strayed to the trees and parakeets.

Shantum rang the bell and pulled out his book, when he caught sight of someone on the path behind us and his face lit up with a Big Smile. I looked behind us, and amid the people walking by in both directions spotted a young Indian guy who caught sight of Shantum and smiled back. Shantum got up and went over to the other guy and greeted him with a hug. Without any idea who Shantum’s friend was, and only as observers, the sangha smiled happily, getting good vibes. Perhaps positive energy like that, spread further and further, is all it would take to achieve world peace.

I thought it a pity that you just don’t see guys hug each other like that in the States, and I know it’s thanks to machismo. Machismo is a product of a derelict patriarchal social structure and is a great inhibition to love and compassion, the most significant values that will transform this from a dominator society to what the scholar Riane Eisler calls a partnership society. American males who buy into machismo are so not inclined to hug other guys, and their attitude disgusts me.

Shantum returned to the lawn in front of the Taj, sat cross-legged again, picked up his black-covered Plum Village book, and asked us who wanted to read. Yvette volunteered, and she read to us a discourse on love. Although the discourse wasn’t about romantic or conjugal love, but love in general, the subject struck me as appropriate, since here we were at the Taj Mahal, and love was its inspiration.

As we walked from the Taj in semi-darkness and passed the long basin that reflects the Taj, Gail took out her flashlight, calling it a torch, no doubt influenced by Indians and British pilgrims. She held the flashlight under Shantum’s chin and said in a mock interrogative voice, “What were you doing at blaah-blaah-blaah on the night of blaah-blaah-blaah?”
“I was in the present moment,” Shantum said.

Heading back to the front gates, Rick reminded me of the security check when he said, “I don’t want to be assaulted again.” So much had happened since then, that it took me a moment to remember. We reached the end of the basin and stood at the verandah of the darker Mughal gatehouse that faces the Taj, while we waited for a few who had gone on a toilet break.

Standing and facing the Taj at dusk, I heard countless peacocks meowing to my right. I looked around at the trees and the long, ornate red stone cloister on my right side, but in vain: not a peacock was in sight. Many of them uttered their strange call at once, like an eerie chorus that isn’t in synch. I meowed back. Nobody seemed surprised, but they’ve also heard me imitate crows, turkeys, puppies, and goats. They probably thought I was another peacock.

6
We visited a huge folk art department store, where we watched a couple of guys demonstrate imbedding semi-precious jewels in a mosaic pattern on hexagonal marble table tops. They were reminiscent of the mosaics on the Taj Mahal’s façade. The store manager led us all to a back storage room full of handcrafted furniture and statues, and we all sat around some of the marble tables that were finished versions of what we had already seen in the making. In a glass display case was an amazing model of the Taj Mahal with a base several feet across. Valerie asked Dean how he was going to fit that model of the Taj into his suitcase. The mind boggles.

We drank masala chai while the manager told us about the craft of the marble tables. The stones that go into them are imported from various different countries and include stones like lapis, marble, and amethyst. They used to get lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, but, um, not so much now. The manager said the craft is an apprenticeship tradition, and I gritted my teeth when he said that it’s passed on from father to son. Like, why not father to daughter? And then, like, the daughter could pass it on to her daughter.

After the talk and chai, we were free to wander around, browse, and shop. Valerie and I stood looking at some marble boxes, and she hadn’t caught the part about this craft being a boy’s club, so when I mentioned it, she said with utter disgust, “Ugh, I hate that.” I nodded.

I noticed a roll of Tibetan-looking brocade displaying a fierce deity, and I said to Feroza, “That would be appropriate for making a Tibetan abbot’s robe.”

I wandered around after buying statues and red silk, and I noticed Erika holding up a bright, bold, pink and green sari that she appeared to be purchasing. Manikins wore regal clothing, such as a long brown and gold brocade jacket for a man, which Gail showed Jagdish, asking him, “Would you wear something like this?”
He answered in the negative, and I said, “Oh, but you’d be dressed like a Bollywood star.”

While we waited downstairs for everyone to finish shopping, Shantum straddled a big porcelain elephant sculpture that stood between the two elevator doors. There was much amusement. I’m not the only one on the pilgrimage who has childlike tendencies. But riding one elephant was enough for me.

We had dinner at a South Indian vegetarian restaurant run by a Brahmin family. It’s a very impressive restaurant, even though the décor is, as Erika pointed out, reminiscent of a pizza parlor, with colorful Tiffany lamps hanging over each wooden booth. Like at the other South Indian restaurant, our food came on metal plates with a deep ridge, and it included pastries in the center and little metal bowls containing sauces and yogurt and such around the periphery. This time, we all drank tall glasses of pink pomegranate juice, something I’d never tried before. Someone said it’s good for you, because it contains oxymorons, I mean antioxidants. It has the added plus of being exceedingly delicious.

At the end of our meal, the servers brought us metal finger bowls containing hot water with a tiny bit of lemon. We had just ordered hot ginger lemon water, and I looked down at the bowl thinking it was odd, but fortunately I observed Shantum dipping his fingers in the water and wiping them with a cloth napkin, so I did the same. Not that I was going to pick up the bowl and slurp like an ogre.

We went outside to discover it had been raining slightly and was indeed dripping out. This surprised me; it was the first rain I encountered in India, after nearly three weeks. The closest I can think of is the morning I was out stalking the peacock in my bare feet and the ground was cold and wet with morning dew. Now, in my hotel room at eleven ten in the night, I hear thunder. At first I thought it must be drums from another wedding.