Agra: A Slice of Wonder and History

It was Christmas and New Year’s time, that time of the year when you had reduced attendance in office, work pressure low and everyone in happy mood in the chill of the winter. For a few years now, I have been longing to go to North India to enjoy the pleasant winters there (pleasant for me, hostile for some others).

We decided on Agra for a couple of days and the remaining couple of days of relaxation in Delhi.

As we came out of the airport, the North-Indian winter chill that I craved for greeted us in great style and soon I imagined as if I was in Europe. We hired a Meru Cab from the airport and set-off for our friend’s house in Chittaranjan Park where we would be put up.

Our friend had arranged a car, a white “DZire” which could take us to Agra and drop us back to Delhi the next day. There are two ways to reach Agra – one by the old National Highway and the other option was the newly constructed eight-lane Yamuna expressway.

The former would be shorter by distance and the latter would save us precious time as the road will be free of traffic. We decided on the former considering the safety factor in foggy conditions. The fact that just a week back there was a thirty-two car pileup on the expressway due to low visibility was the major factor in our decision.

Taj Mahal

We reached close to the Taj at around 3:30 PM that made our journey a whopping 5 hours long. The expressway would have got us here in around three hours.  Our driver, Sandeep was experienced enough and he did the wise thing to take us to one of his known guides. An authorized guide would take us INR 475 but we felt it would be worth it, especially with the limited time we had, the last thing we would want is getting stuck at the wrong ticket window or the longest queue. We were assured as the guide Mohammed got into our car. He took us to the VIP gate, purchased the tickets and we boarded a small bus which took us to the entrance of the Taj. The bus was full of foreign tourists and we were the only Indians in it. The whole area was well maintained and tourist-friendly with clean toilets at the ticket counter and snacks available all the way. The area outside the gate was full of souvenir shops which we thought we would visit on our return. We had to wait a bit in queue as there are some strict security checks happening. No kind of bags are allowed except cameras and ladies handbags so checking looked to be simpler. Finally we were through. The sky was grey, with no sun in sight but a full hour and a half of day-light still remaining for us to enjoy the wonder of the world. We entered through one of the huge gates situated at the South, East and West of the Taj Mahal. The Eastern Gate to be precise. The gate itself is a beautiful monument typical of the Mughal era. We started clicking photographs and selfies and thanks to Mohammad, we did not have to ask random strangers to click photos. In fact, it irritated him when, at the time he was uttering an important trivea, we interrupted him and asked him to click us in multiple poses.  The first sight of the wonder through the gate left me awestruck. The gate seemed to act like a magnifying glass which gave the viewer an illusion that the monument is right there a few inches after you cross the gate. The grey sky made it feel like a two dimensional image hanging from the sky. And on entry when we realized the three-dimensional image located at some distance of around 150 metres, it still felt like an illusion against the grey sky. I had visited the Taj Mahal twenty three years back in 1988 with my grandparents. So while it was not my first visit here, it surely felt so due to the number of years that has passed by. Asmi had been here more recently but even for her it seemed special.  Needless to say the place was infested with tourists of all nationalities ranging from Africans, Asians to Americans.  The gardens in the area were beautifully maintained with sufficient greenery and that made most people respect the place a bit more, especially my fellow Indian tourists (Read no spitting and no throwing of garbage). There were a number of professional photographers inside with their Nikon and Canon DSLR cameras. I had carried mine as well but realized that the battery was dead. Over the past year the iPhone 5s camera served my purpose and probably because of that I neglected to recharge by DSLR battery.  Though when going to places with natural beauty, I would never forget to do this. We got a few clicked with a professional photographer so that we could get some hard copies. He promised to deliver the photos on our way back and gave his mobile number. Possibly, we typed a wrong digit and hence could not locate the person later. Next task was to visit the inside of the monument for which the queue was huge. As it was the end of the day, it was moving fast and we reached the first level, after which we gave up. Not that the queue demoralized us but we thought that the main beauty was on the outside which we had already seen and captured. We made our exit slowly and listening to the last bits of trivea from our guide Mohammed.  An important information I learnt was that the myth surrounding Shah Jahan chopping the hands of all the laborers who built the Taj was in fact a myth and not the truth. There is an area around the Taj where some of the descendents of the laborers still live and make various contributions to the maintenance of the monument.

Sheroes Cafe and Sadar Bazaar Market Place

We were hungry by this time so we set-off in our car to move around the place to locate a snack-joint. We settled for a unique café called Sheroes. It was unique in the way that it was run by five acid attack victims and the café was a brilliant display of their fighting spirit. The café served snacks and also had a library. I even managed to charge my phone which was almost dead after clicking some 200 photos. And more surprisingly there were no price tags attached to each dish you order and no bill to pay. You pay whatever you feel like as a contribution and in return you get a thank you card. The evening had now set in. We first checked in our hotel – Raj Mahal which was on the same road a few hundred meters away. It was a nice hotel at INR 3000 for a night along with complementary breakfast.  We freshened up a bit and set-off again to enjoy the city. We went to the Sadar bazaar market place and were greeted to an amazing lively New Year’s Day crowd. The place was bustling with people, each in a festive mood. I wondered if it was only for New Year’s Day or is it filled up like this due to tourists.  Agra is famous for leather goods. We checked a few shops but barring a few souvenirs (refrigerator magnets) we did not have anything to purchase. We headed for dinner now to the beautiful Oberoi Amarvilas hotel, one of the many luxury hotels in the town.

Agra Fort

The next day’s plan was quite straight forward – breakfast, followed by visits to Agra Fort and Fatehpur-Sikri and then the drive back to Delhi. The weather turned out to be a dampener. It rained a bit at night and there was a very light drizzle still in the air. Not that it would hamper us much but just that it would be an irritant at times.  The fort was at its gorgeous best. We hired a guide here as well as I was briefly aware of the history and was interested to know more details. The history books taught us a lot about the Mughals and the guide just refreshed those lessons. We walked around the fort from one section to the other. The fort was built over three generations of Mughal emperors and as far as I remember, completed by Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb. The Taj Mahal could be seen at a distance through the heavy grey cloud. The most iconic section was the one where Shah Jahan was kept as prisoner for the last few years of his life by Aurangzeb and from there he would be looking at the reflection of the Taj Mahal which would shimmer in the glass. After the fort, our next stop was Fatehpur Sikri but before that we squeezed in a visit to the Tibetan market which was very close to the fort. We wanted to check out warm clothes and the guide told us about this market. The visit was a big success as both of us picked up jackets which we liked and we would be now driving to Fatehpur Sikri with a new look. 

Fatehpur Sikri

Fatehpur Sikri was Akbar’s alternate capital and he spent quite a lot of his years there. It is around 34 kms from Agra on the Jaipur highway. The road was initially crowded but once we hit the Jaipur highway it was smooth and fast.  We reached in little over an hour’s time at around 3 PM. The place was very tourist friendly and we were greeted with a number of souvenir shops. We were hungry by this time and seeing that there was a nice restaurant, we decided to have food first and then go for our sightseeing, as we had sufficient time. This proved to a bit time consuming as there was delay in the lunch and by the time we were ready to visit the monument, it was past 4 PM. The place is located on a hill. There is a bus service which takes you up the hill. However, with time running out, we decided to hire an auto-rickshaw, which would also bring us back. 

There were two places to visit – one was the religious place which contained the “Darga” and the other was the residential part which was the Diwan-e-Khas. We had to take off our shoes for the area surrounding the “Darga”. It was a huge open space, the entrance to which was the iconic Buland Darwaza, mentioned prominently in history books. The place also contained the Jama Masjid next to the “Darga”. We then moved over to the residential part of the complex – the Diwan-e-khas. The place had number of structures like the panch mahal, all maintained beautifully along with a garden. It was 6 PM and was time for us to leave now.  On our way back, we decided to take the Yamuna Expressway. It took us an hour to return to Agra city and then soon we were flying on the magnificent expressway.  We took a break in between to enjoy a cup of coffee in the wonderful cold weather and soon we passed the Buddh International circuit into Noida. The Noida expressway was also fast and brilliant and soon we were at home at around 10 PM.