Most
people visit the magnificent monument Taj Mahal. Well, I have been there too,
twice, both without my husband. Quite recently, before my recent trip to Agra,
I have read the critical analysis posted in the Facebook that though Taj Mahal
is popularly known to be built for the love of his one of the four wives by Shah Jahan, there is little love in it for
common people like us. I am not sure if it is true but Mumtaz died while giving
birth to their fourteenth child and Shah Jahan married her sister upon her
death. And also Shah Jahan cut of the hands of the builder or the architech so
that he wouldn’t replicate the same monument elsewhere. Now love do sound
complicated here.
Anyway,
my friends were quite anxious and one of my colleagues had his wife come over
to meet him and he was particularly excited for reasons I don’t have to
mention, even though I said all I could remember from my last trip was the tomb
of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz and the unbeatable heat. So we made the arrangements
to visit the monument anyway. I am not surprised to say that we got cheated the
moment we started our journey. Firstly, our driver, who had supposedly visited
Taj Mahal twice, had no idea where the Taj Mahal was upon reaching Agra. He
kept on repeating “Pura Naktsa hi badal diya”(meaning the map of Agra has
changed). Secondly, we were forced with a guide despite our repeated refusal
and thirdly we landed up paying for the free trips for foreign visitors.
We
took less than 45 minutes to finish our tour because the heat was roasting us
alive and we didn’t know people would be swarming because it was Sunday. The matter
became when guides and photographer ran after us, nudging here, requesting
there and making us feel all the more important. I don’t know if it was the
heat but all I could remember hearing the guide was the different types of
marbles and from where it was imported. I just managed to ask how long it took
to construct it because I couldn’t imagine importing marbles all the way from
China or Arabia and the exquisite details of calligraphy.
So,
we were finally coming out and I said I want to take picture with a popular
pose of pretending to hold Taj Mahal on my hands. Either I am a poor communicator
of what I wanted or my friend was feeling too hot to even bother listening to
my instruction because this is the picture he took of mine.
It was such relieve to get back to our car and
didn’t think of checking my pictures even though my friends were giggling at
the back. We finally reached our hotel and my friend mentioned that he transferred
all of my pictures to me. When I got to my room and opened my messengers I just
couldn’t stop laughing.
