I know why the people of India, Hindu and Muslim, pray frequently. It is to survive in traffic. The street scene here is very different than anything in the US. Lanes and shoulders are meaningless; pedestrians are on their own, with drivers watching, but getting very, very close. All trucks have "Honk the horn" painted on the back, and that is what everyone does. Beep, Beep, get out of the way, I'm coming. This is in town and on the freeway. Being a bicyclist, I know the feeling of knowing there is a vehicle coming behind you and you just hope he sees you and goes around. Same here for the rickshaw and ox or camel cart. I am reporting, not judging. The drivers of whichever vehicle display amazing adeptness at avoiding collisions and pedestrians. All of this with 1 to 6 cows clustered together and taking their time to get wherever they are going.
I found what I thought I had lost last night, and it went something like this:
If Chandni Chowk was psychedelic, Agra was the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont. Agra has these world renowned stars, the Taj Mahal, Akbar's Tomb, and its own Red Fort, all set within this aggressive and dirtier than most town of about 1.5 million people. We saw an auto-rickshaw driver accidentally bump into a motorcycle with two big guys on it. They jumped off the bike and one guy dragged the auto-rickshaw driver down the busy street while the other guy pounded his face. All this while traffic zoomed by and pedestrians watched from the sidelines. Hopefully, it does not happen often. Of course we have drive by shootings and violence all the time at home, but it does not grab you until you see it up close. Being a smaller town, there are lot's of cows wondering the streets amidst the traffic (my driver, Vicky, said the cows are family owned, but feed is too expensive, so the owners let them forage unattended in the streets all day and when it is time for milking the cow finds her way home...the owner gets milk for the family and some to sell), pigs rifling through piles of garbage, stray dogs, some camels (with handlers), and donkey carts. I forgot the white horses everywhere that are hired out for weddings, in which the groom always gets decked out and rides in on a fancy white horse. I don't know if that's the wedding or part of the lead up parade in which brass horns, drums, bells, dancing girls, and friends of the bride and groom parade down the street making lots of noise and having a good time. I even saw this in Delhi.
Agra straddles the Yamuna river, one side of which hosts the Taj, the other side within easy seeing range, the Red Fort. Just across the river, on the north side of the Taj, I walked through the Moon Garden, where Shah Jahan went to relax and meditate. The garden itself is nicely laid out and maintained, and right next to it are agrarian people living in grass huts. The contrast between this habitat and the white marble beauty just across the river is staggering. The Taj is staggering anyway and from whatever angle one beholds it. The guard tents and sand bagged bunkers for gun emplacements along the river below the monument made me think of Vietnam. The structure is so big and white that the government hung black cloth to cover the dome, which glistens with moonlight, during a period of threat from Pakistan who said they were going to bomb it. The metal rings drilled into the beautiful marble to hold the drapery are still there and quite visible.
Arriving from Delhi you see Akbar's Tomb first. He was the third Mughal emperor and began the construction of his own tomb in 1605. He died shortly after beginning the building and his son completed it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Akbar_the_Great. See yesterday's pictures.
Here is the Taj Mahal, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal which is a tomb for Shah Jahan's third wife, Mumtaz He began building it in 1631 and completed it about 20 years later. After it was completed, his son, Aurangzeb, wrested power away from him, and imprisoned him in the Red Fort across the river, where he could look out and see the Taj and mourn his wife and his imprisonment.
From across the Yamuna...
Usual image...
This is across the river...
Security...
The people across the river...
I found what I thought I had lost last night, and it went something like this:
If Chandni Chowk was psychedelic, Agra was the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont. Agra has these world renowned stars, the Taj Mahal, Akbar's Tomb, and its own Red Fort, all set within this aggressive and dirtier than most town of about 1.5 million people. We saw an auto-rickshaw driver accidentally bump into a motorcycle with two big guys on it. They jumped off the bike and one guy dragged the auto-rickshaw driver down the busy street while the other guy pounded his face. All this while traffic zoomed by and pedestrians watched from the sidelines. Hopefully, it does not happen often. Of course we have drive by shootings and violence all the time at home, but it does not grab you until you see it up close. Being a smaller town, there are lot's of cows wondering the streets amidst the traffic (my driver, Vicky, said the cows are family owned, but feed is too expensive, so the owners let them forage unattended in the streets all day and when it is time for milking the cow finds her way home...the owner gets milk for the family and some to sell), pigs rifling through piles of garbage, stray dogs, some camels (with handlers), and donkey carts. I forgot the white horses everywhere that are hired out for weddings, in which the groom always gets decked out and rides in on a fancy white horse. I don't know if that's the wedding or part of the lead up parade in which brass horns, drums, bells, dancing girls, and friends of the bride and groom parade down the street making lots of noise and having a good time. I even saw this in Delhi.
Agra straddles the Yamuna river, one side of which hosts the Taj, the other side within easy seeing range, the Red Fort. Just across the river, on the north side of the Taj, I walked through the Moon Garden, where Shah Jahan went to relax and meditate. The garden itself is nicely laid out and maintained, and right next to it are agrarian people living in grass huts. The contrast between this habitat and the white marble beauty just across the river is staggering. The Taj is staggering anyway and from whatever angle one beholds it. The guard tents and sand bagged bunkers for gun emplacements along the river below the monument made me think of Vietnam. The structure is so big and white that the government hung black cloth to cover the dome, which glistens with moonlight, during a period of threat from Pakistan who said they were going to bomb it. The metal rings drilled into the beautiful marble to hold the drapery are still there and quite visible.
Arriving from Delhi you see Akbar's Tomb first. He was the third Mughal emperor and began the construction of his own tomb in 1605. He died shortly after beginning the building and his son completed it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Akbar_the_Great. See yesterday's pictures.
Here is the Taj Mahal, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal which is a tomb for Shah Jahan's third wife, Mumtaz He began building it in 1631 and completed it about 20 years later. After it was completed, his son, Aurangzeb, wrested power away from him, and imprisoned him in the Red Fort across the river, where he could look out and see the Taj and mourn his wife and his imprisonment.
From across the Yamuna...
This is across the river...
The people across the river...
Beautiful pics! Interesting commentary also.
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