AGRA

HISTORY:
On the banks of the River Yamuna in the northjern state of Uttar Pradesh, Agra is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 24th most populous in India.
First mentioned in the epic Mahabharata, where it was called Agrevana, little is known of the pre-Muslim history of Agra, but an account dated from 1080 AD describes a robust fort with a flourishing, albeit minor, city placed at the crossroads between the north and centre of India. In 1504 the Delhi Sultan moved his capital here but by 1526 his dynasty was defeated by Babur, the founder of the Moghal empire. Agra remained the empire's capital for over a century even after the building of a new city in Delhi by Shah Jahan. He pulled down many of Agra's earlier red-sandstone structures replacing them with his trademark marble buildings. The ever-increasing extravagance of this building spree began to strain the imperial coffers and sowed the seeds of political and military decline.
The city flourished up to 1707 but an increasingly anti-Muslim intolerance led to unrest, and Agra was subsequently occupied successively by the Jats, the Marathas and eventually the British. After the 1857 uprising the city lost the HQ of the government of the Northwestern Provinces and the High Court to Allahabad and went into a period of decline. It remained under British rule until Independence.
Along with Delhi and Jaipur, Agra is the third apex of the 'Golden Triangle', India's most popular tourist itinerary.

GETTING THERE:

Today was due to be a long, tiring and possibly fraught day as we travelled by train from Lucknow to Agra. But it was also, we hoped, the start of what should be one of the highlights of our time in India: the Taj Mahal.
'Possibly fraught' because Rudy had been at pains to stress to us that today's train would only stop for 2 minutes at each station before starting off again, regardless of whether or not the train doors were closed and passengers and luggage had alighted. As there were 18 of us and at least as many pieces of luggage that was going to be very tight! To complicate things further, Stuart had unfortunately fallen down some badly-lit stairs at the Lucknow hotel and broken his arm 2 days before. Clearly he and his wife Ann were going to need help from all of us getting on and off the train, and particular help with their luggage. 

It was a very early start from the hotel and, armed with a packed breakfast, we settled down on the platform to wait for the train. Fortunately there were enough seats for Ann and Stuart ...

... though not for many of the rest of us.

The platform was full of  both commuters and those like us going on longer journeys. Many had brought mats and were lying down on the platform catching some much-needed rest before the journey. You don't see that at Euston or New Street!

There was a chance for travellers to grab some reading-matter before we set off

or to wash our hands or faces.

 We hadn't been too sure about how accurate the train's name would turn out to be

 but, in the event, the journey itself was problem-free. The packed breakfasts were very welcome after waiting over an hour on the platform for our train to pull in. Our seats were in Chair Class, very comfortable and more roomy than Virgin trains, and the food that was brought to you at your seat was an unexpected bonus: even your own small thermos flask to make tea!
Getting off the train was another matter. We'd been told that a team of porters had been paid to meet us at Agra station and to help unload the bags from the train before taking them to the waiting coach that was to take us to the Radisson Hotel. So far so good, but that left Sue in charge of our hand luggage to get off as Steve helped assemble the large cases for the porters to take. Getting on the train had seemed straight forward albeit with a very high step up but getting off involved a deep step down with a bag to carry and no where to hold on to. The end result was that, knowing that the clock was ticking before the 2 minutes were up, she let someone she thought was a porter 'help' her and he then made a getaway with the bag, with Sue shouting and in hot pursuit down the platform as the bag was passed from one man to another. (Paul later described her as resembling a rugby player aiming for a try but she put it down to her London upbringing.) After what seemed like too long, Rudy appeared, money changed hands and the bag, successfully tracked, was returned.
That explains why the photos of the porters carrying our group's bags, balanced on their heads, up the station steps are not as good as they might have been.

AGRA FORT:

Some how when the tour was set up Saga had not realised that our first day in Agra was a Friday and that the Taj Mahal is closed on Fridays so Rudy had to undertake a quick rearrangement of the schedule. Our first visit was now to be to Agra Fort, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and we should, if the day was a clear one, catch a beguiling glimpse of the Taj Mahal.
Agra Fort dominates a bend in the Yamuna River 2km northwest of the Taj Mahal. Akbar, the first Mughal emperor in India, laid the foundations on the remains of earlier Rajput fortifications known as 'Badalgarh'. Four thousand builders worked on it daily for 8 years, completing it in 1573.  Further improvements were made by Akbar's successors: Shah Jahan, his grandson and builder of the Taj Mahal, built the impressive imperial quarters, destroying some of the earlier buildings inside the fort to make his own. Later his son, Aurangzeb, added the outer ramparts.
The Fort was initially built as a military structure but Shah Jahan transformed it into a palace. It later became his gilded prison after his son seized power in 1658. It is believed that Shah Jahan died in Musamman Burj, a tower with a marble balcony with a view of the Taj Mahal.

Amar Singh Gate. Its dogleg design was meant to confuse attackers who made it past the first line of defence: the crocodile-infested moat.

Ramparts

Akbar Darwaza, the inner gate at Fort

Jahangir Palace

This circular bowl-shaped tank is 5 feet high, 8 feet in diameter and 25 feet in circumference. It was built to be transported and used in the camp as well as the Harem Palace for bathing.

Khas Mahal built by Shah Jahan for his daughters

The Diwan-E-Aam, built between 1630 and 1641, was where Shah Jehan addressed the general public as well as the nobility. The huge assembly hall measures 201 feet by 67 feet and was constructed in red sandstone plastered with white shell plaster to resemble white marble.

Out there, somewhere, is the Taj Mahal taken from Musamman Burj. We hoped to get a clearer day tomorrow when we visited!


TAJ MAHAL:

'a teardrop on the face of eternity'  (Rabibdranath Tagore, Bengali poet)

Overlooking the Yamuna River, the Taj Mahal is a monument to romantic love, built between 1632 and 1651  by Shah Jahan to enshrine the body of his favourite wife, Arjumand Bann Begum. Better known by her official palace title Mumtaz Mahal ('Chosen One of the Palace'), she died after giving birth to her 14th child. Devastated by her death, the Emperor set out to create an unsurpassed monument to her memory. A workforce of over 20,000 men from all over Asia used marble from Makrana in Rajasthan and semi-precious stones for decoration from Persia, Russia Afghanistan and China.
Eventually Shah Jahan's pious and intolerant son Aurangzeb seized power and incarcerated the former emperor in Agra Fort where he lived till 1666, as legend has it, gazing wistfully at the Taj Mahal. His body was then carried across the river to lie alongside his beloved wife. 
By the late 19th century much of the Taj had fallen into disrepair, and in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 it had even been defaced by British soldiers and government officials. Lord Curzon, a later British Viceroy, ordered a sweeping restoration project which was completed in 1908.
It survived more recent threats in 1942 (from Japanese bomber pilots) and in 1965 and 1971 (during Indo-Pakistan wars) by the erection of scaffolding to mislead bomber pilots. Currently environmental pollution has been turning it yellow-brown and cracks have been appearing because of a decline in the groundwater level in the Yamuna river basin.

A horribly early start this morning because, as the Indian President was due to pay an official visit that afternoon, the Taj Mahal was to close at midday. The unexpected bonus though was that we would be amongst the very first to enter once it opened.
It was worth the wait as there were hardly any others inside.
Once through the gateway we could see the Taj at the end of a huge charbagh (literally '4 gardens'), a garden dissected into 4 quadrants by waterways, evoking the Koranic description of Paradise where rivers flow with water, milk, wine and honey.

We could have done the classic 'Diana seat ' pose BUT neither of us looked the part!!

Steps lead from the end of the gardens up to the high square marble platform on which the mausoleum itself sits, each corner marked by a tall, tapering minaret.

4 minarets frame the tomb, each at one corner.

The tomb is the central focus of the entire complex, a large white marble structure standing on a square plinth with an iwan (an arch-shaped doorway) topped by a large dome and finial. The dome is nearly 35 metres high and the top is decorated with a lotus design which accentuates its height. The shape of the dome is further emphasised by for smaller domed chattris placed at its corners which replicate the onion shape of the main dome. The dome and chattris are topped by a gilded finial which mixes traditional Persian and Hindustani decorative elements.

The main chamber houses the false sacophagi of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahal; the actual graves are at a lower level. Unfortunately, but understandably, no photography is permitted inside the building.

Constructed between 1632-1638, and standing 93 feet high and 150 feet wide, the main gateway to the Taj is built of red sandstone. The doorway is of ogival arch shape and the corners of the gate are octagonal shaped towers, surrounded by an open-domed pavilion. There are 11 umbrella-shaped marble cupolas over the central portion of the gateway.

The main gateway (darwaza) to the Taj Mahal

The exterior decorations of the Taj Mahal are amongst the finest in Mughal architecture and were created by applying paint, stucco, stone inlays or carvings. The decorative elements are either calligraphy, abstract forms or vegetative motifs.
Throughout the complex, passages from the Qur'an are used as decorative elements. The calligraphy was created by Abd ul-Haq in 1609.

Caligraphy of Persian poems

Herringbone inlays

Plant motifs

The minarets, each more than 40 metres tall, were designed as working minarets , used by the muezzin to call the Islamic faithful to prayer. Each is divided into 3 equal parts by 2 working balconies that ring the tower, and were constructed so that in the event of collapse the material from the towers would tend to fall away from the tomb.

To the west, and facing the tomb, is a sandstone mosque, completed in 1643,  whose floor is laid with the outlines of 569 prayer rugs in black marble. Its basic design of a long hall surmounted by 3 domes is similar to others built by Shah Jahan.

As we were leaving the Taj this picture in many ways summed up much of what we were learning about the contradictions and co-existence of modern practices and traditional culture in India.

PARCHIN KARI

After our Taj visit and the very early start we were happy enough to sit on the coach for a tour of Agra. Amazingly one of the large compounds we drove past was the Convent of Jesus and Mary school: Sue had gone to the Harlesden 'branch' between 1962 and 1969!! 

Of course there was the inevitable stop at a craft centre.

The artistic tradition of inlay of gemstones on marble dates back to the 1500s when it first appeared in Rome as Pietra Dura. It was later introduced into India and under the patronage of the Mughals grew to its localised art form known as Parchin Kari. 

Stone slivers are shaped, by craftsmen using a manually operated emery wheel, into minute petals, leaves and stems. Matching the shapes to a brass template, hollow spaces are then chiselled on marble which is heated before the stone are laid flush in it. Any tiny gaps in the inlay are filled with white cement to match the white marble base.