Day 38 - The Agra Fort

Well Emperor Shah Jahan and his wives had to live somewhere and the Agra Fort was the place. It’s on a hill on the opposite side of the Yamuna River to the Taj Mahal. One can get a good view of the monument from the fort’s walls. This fort has all the classic “fort” features. It’s very high walls are made of red sandstone, it has a broad moat at the bottom of the outer wall once patrolled by crocodiles, a drawbridge, the are a between the outer wall and the first inner wall was once patrolled by hungry tigers, it has multiple, non-aligned gates to prevent a straight in attack and, to make really make sure no uninvited guests got in, it has a long, steep, narrow ramp up to the main square where a large stone ball could be rolled down, a’la “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, to flatten any insurgent enthusiasm.

Once through all the defenses, we found the magnificent, huge grounds and gardens. Once again, a beautiful sunny day greeted us as we started the formal tour of the Shah’s Palace. Marble and red sandstone abound in every direction one gazed. The artwork in the form of the carvings in so much of the sandstone and the marble is both astounding and outstanding. Standing in one of the marble-clad halls our guide painted a wonderful verbal picture of how it would have looked in the days of the Shah with it’s gold, diamond, ruby, sapphire and emerald inlay work coupled with the morning sun shining through the translucent marble walls and the inlaid jewels. The luxurious Persian carpets scattered over  the floors and hanging from the ceilings would have added plenty to the opulent sense of the place. Deeper into the Palace we found a lovely lawned courtyard once known as the Meetha Bazaar. Once a month the ladies of the Court would meet here to shop and buy their personal items. It was here that the Shah first laid eyes on his third wife. She was, in modern-day terms, a sales assistant at one of the stalls. Apparently, it was love at first sight.

The Shah’s first two wives were unable to give him any children while the third bore fourteen children to him – eight of whom died while still very young. Of the remaining six, two were girls and four were boys. When the third boy realised that he would likely never ascend to the throne he killed his three brothers and imprisoned his father for eight years. Every day until the day he died, the imprisoned Shah could do nothing other than gaze out through the window across the Yamuna river to the Taj Mahal where his beloved wife lay. A fate worse than death for him, I can imagine. What a cruel man was his son.

Our tour ended we took one last look at the beautiful fort and descend to the busy street below. Our tour leader then took us to a co-operatively-run, goverment-backed store that made hand-knotted rugs ansd carpets. We’d been to one of these in Madurai in South India. We observed at close quarters the outstanding craftsmanship that goes into making these wonderful pieces of art. I had the task of burning the piece that was in the process of being crafted. The rug was being made of wool so burning the fluffy bits off the back is quite safe to do because wool will not catch alight. Of course we were hen escorted to the sales room where many finished pieces we shown to us. They were all stunningly beautiful and fine pieces. When a primarily deep red one with hints of terra cotta and white, done in a classic style was rolled out before us we were both overcome with excitement and bought it! Compared to the ones in Madurai the prices were much more affordable for us and included shipping back home. It’s 9ft x 6ft (I think) and made using the double-knot technique which make it much thicker and heavier. It’ll go in the front room. You’ll all just have to come up to Bendigo to see it in person!

The topic of conversation all over India today is how the Aussies beat India in the Third Test in Indore this morning. We were at the Agra Fort when the news came in. It’s the first time in six years that Australia has won in India and the just India’s third loss in ten years to any cricket nation on home soil. The native are not happy. Anant is a big cricket fan so he was somewhat disappointed in the result. There’s been a great friendly rivalry between us as the tours (both ours and the Australians) have progressed over the last few weeks. Our tour guide at the Taj Mahal and the director at the carpet store both “refused” to talk to me about cricket after today’s result came in.

We headed back to the hotel for a couple of hours rest before our departure to the Agra railway station. Tonight we’re traveling about 12 hours to the holy city of Varanasi. We will have the “luxury” of a sleeping car. For almost two hours we hung about in Platform Two waiting to board. We were the best part of an hour early and the train was the best part of an hour late! The monkeys scrambling around the station kept us entertained as did the conversation with Monica and Manu, two ex-pat Indians from Austin, Texas who were home visiting family. Manu works in IT, Monica is a teacher and they have twin girls in their mid-twenties studying in Texas so we has plenty in common to talk about.

Eventually the train arrived and it was jam-packed already. The important festival of Holi is about to start so everyone is traveling to their favourite place of worship to celebrate it. Varanasi, being a holy city, is high on people’s list. As is the usual way, the train was full of people who had bought a ticket to ride but not a seat to sit in so there was plenty of pushing and shoving and stern words and stern people and shuffling of bags and bodies before we were able to eventually settle in the seats we owned. This is all very “colourful” of course but I’d rather people just played nicely by the rules and did the right thing. But this is India, so if you you come here and expect that to ever be the case then you’ll be very disappointed and disillusioned by the experience that will ensue.