Introduction To Agra

Yesterday could not in any way be described adequately in a single blog post. The symmetry, the adventure, the absolute freshness and beauty of it all not only renders anything I might be able to say meaningless in my mind, but also means that I cannot hope to even touch on half of what I have seen in the last 24 hours. To be brief, yesterday was the day I went to the Taj Mahal. Except that doesn’t describe it. Yesterday was the day I went to Agra. No, I guess the best way to put it is this: yesterday was the day I saw rural India. Except Agra is most certainly not rural. So how about this: yesterday was the day I saw the most beautiful collection of sights I have ever seen.

I will be splitting this post, then, into four sub-posts: rural India; Fatehpur, the Taj Mahal, and the return home, including Khan Temple and possibly a cohesion meant to bring to light the elemental forces blowing like the wind throughout the entire day. I will not aim to be brief – while any expression of yesterday would be inaccurate, a brief summary would fail to do justice not only to the events of the day, but to the awesome power it held and its serene, Hindu-esque balance, and I cannot allow such an injustice to stand.

It all began at around 6:00 in the morning on a silent Noida street (actually, it began at around 5:30 when the cab got a flat and the driver had to get it replaced before picking us up, and making us coincidentally about half an hour late, but I’m starting the story at 6). The reason this street was silent was that it was a Saturday, and that it was 6:00. While the silence normally would have been somewhat eerie, I was unable to process it in my own half-awake state. What I do remember, though, is the driver talking in loud, harsh Hindi tones to my friend Sravanthi. She responded in turn, keeping me awake by a bare half decibel. It was torturous, and I finally realized that sleep, unfortunately, was just was not going to happen.

The situation was that the car we had hired for the day was not a licensed cab. Or the situation was that Megan and I are foreigners, depending on how you look at it all. Rationally, in my mind, the situation was that India is internationally known for its amazing tourist attractions.

The situation in fact centered around a rule that required all tourists use vehicles that had a tourist permit. The permit included all registered cabs. Our car, obviously, was not a registered cab, nor did it have a tourist permit, but that was perfectly fine because the police didn’t actually check at tourist sights. You had to be very unlucky to get caught. At least, you were unlucky unless you were in the tourist capital of India with two white people in your car – then it was just a simple process of deduction and an equally simple ignorance of the need for proof, and all of a sudden your stupidity left you facing the long arm of the law.

After debating for a while, the driver stopped the car and we sat, making phone calls to try to get a car with a permit, updating various people about the situation, and generally trying to find a solution to the conundrum however we could. Five minutes later, having found nothing, the driver inched out into the road again, leaving the issue threateningly unresolved. We continued on to get the last member of our party, then headed towards Agra.

The driver claimed he knew a shortcut that would take us straight to Fatehpur Sikri, our first destination. It had the advantage of keeping us outside of Agra, and therefore outside of the range of the cops, for longer, and so we agreed. I put my head against the window and tried once again to regain the precious hours of sleep I had lost for this trip. Once again, however, my efforts were cruelly thwarted, this time both by our Indian companions discussing breakfast options and the quality of the roads on this shortcut. I was too tired to eat, and did not like the thought of food getting in the way of sleep. However, as before, I bent knee to the powers that be and decided to stay up just a little while longer.

The next thing I know, we are out of the city, which brought a temporary cease-fire to my struggle with the one major issue I had with Delhi – the crowds. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, a day in which there would be no loud clanging, no noisy chattering, no healthy women trying to beg for food in nice dresses (uh-huh…I know what you’re thinking, and yes…normal here). I got up and began to take stock of my surroundings.

The North Indian countryside is beautiful. It is green, stretching as far as the eyes can see (which is not far, given the Delhi smog). On occasion, one might see a farmer working the field (with his bare hands) or a woman carrying a jug of water on her head. Every mile or so, we pass a small farm town, full of pink and blue house-like structures and with children and cattle running amuck. Men walk to and fro with large stems of some vegetable across their back, and on occasion a pony, bull, or camel pulls a cart full of crop into town.

After a while, the car lulls to silence, and I turn and put my head down, trying once more to fall back to sleep. As soon as my head hits the wall, however, I hear Sravanthi yell “Roko! Hey guys, look, a peacock!”

I grudgingly get up once again from the nap that was never to be and faced a small field. A dirt mound sprung up in the center, seemingly out of nowhere, and on top of that stood the bird. Full in all his glory, the peacock’s beautiful turquoise neck and light midsection gave way to a closed tail. His head was held high, as he stood at the center of the dirt mound, seemingly watching the whole field from that one little roost. He kept his head high long enough for me to take a picture, then walked down the mound and back up again, as if to show that yes, we may have caught his beautiful form on camera, but it was merely a glimpse of what he truly was.

We got back in the car and continued on our way. The road became steadily rockier as the countryside became somehow, indescribably more rural. The spacing between farm towns did not change, but the people became fewer and farther between. As we moved through a town, we passed a child, stark naked, standing right next to the street, adults all around him, and nobody minding. All of a sudden, though, the car began to slow down and lose a little control. Flat tire, take two.

We pulled over to the left side of the road, right next to a pair of bull-cows. As the driver got out of the car, a man on our right exited his home (there are no doors on the houses on these farms – only a roof over their heads, so he merely stepped down from the structure into the dirt to leave his abode. He was wearing a towel around his waist, and nothing else. As I watched, he moved to the water spout outside, filled a bucket, and began to shower, staring awkwardly at the car full of outsiders the whole time.

I turned away, unable to bear this invasion of privacy, just in time to see one of the bull-cows defecate directly in front of me. I pointed this out, and the Indians in the car began to give us a detailed description of how the bullsh*! would be picked up and made into dried cakes, to burn as fuel.

As we sat there, the smell of manure began to slowly seep into the car. A crowd of children had gathered around us now, eager to see the outsiders – especially the white man (for some reason, they took a quick look at Megan and seemed to pass her by. I claim she looks more Indian than I do – perhaps I’m right).

Five minutes later, with about 10 children staring at me, stupefied, the driver manages to put on a new tire. Luckily for us, it was a full one, rather than a spare, and so rather than driving to the nearest auto shop and sitting in rural India for the rest of the day, we continued on one of the best journeys of my life.