the guide books told me that Agra is a public porta-loo that’s just entertained 50 000 drunken debauched rubgy supporters after a bachanalian binge. It was indeed that. But I liked it. Alot.
The dirty dusty streets harbour no pretense, they present no glamour, glory, pop or fizz. They lack lustre, polish or shine. They’re quotidian. And they’re in stark contrast to the building by which this city grabbed all the glory.
Arriving in glamour-less Agra, one of the acute angles in the tourist-defined Golden Triangle, on entering my hotel room seeing the western flushing toilet, the power shower, those wee sachets of coffee, the colour teevee blazing sporting highlights, I thought I’d just swallowed on an LSD strip in ‘70’s London. Grabbing a couple of local Indian beverages, I sucked on them while flipping through the myriad cricket channels until my eyeballs sunk into the corner pockets of the billiard table of my brain. Here’s to Agraphoria
The first stop was the Red Fort. A massive fort. It’s red and it’s big. It’s full of people, stone, marble, colonnades and green parrots. The security guard turned a grimace when he found my dry wors stashed in my ruck sack. On being patted down, he grabbed my pocket, for the contents were hard. ‘that’s my phone’, I said. Pulling my Blackberry out, stunned, he said, ‘that’s small’. Entering the Fort I did the quick cover flow of my surroundings and bounded for the exit.
The dirty dusty streets harbour no pretense, they present no glamour, glory, pop or fizz. They lack lustre, polish or shine. They’re quotidian. And they’re in stark contrast to the building by which this city grabbed all the glory.
Arriving in glamour-less Agra, one of the acute angles in the tourist-defined Golden Triangle, on entering my hotel room seeing the western flushing toilet, the power shower, those wee sachets of coffee, the colour teevee blazing sporting highlights, I thought I’d just swallowed on an LSD strip in ‘70’s London. Grabbing a couple of local Indian beverages, I sucked on them while flipping through the myriad cricket channels until my eyeballs sunk into the corner pockets of the billiard table of my brain. Here’s to Agraphoria
The first stop was the Red Fort. A massive fort. It’s red and it’s big. It’s full of people, stone, marble, colonnades and green parrots. The security guard turned a grimace when he found my dry wors stashed in my ruck sack. On being patted down, he grabbed my pocket, for the contents were hard. ‘that’s my phone’, I said. Pulling my Blackberry out, stunned, he said, ‘that’s small’. Entering the Fort I did the quick cover flow of my surroundings and bounded for the exit.
Next on Gajendar’s agenda was the Taj Mahal. Frustrated at forking out another hot wad of rupees for seeing sights of antiquity-entrance to the Taj being a whopping one thousand rupees, I put foot down. Flummoxed and frothing at the mouth I belched out to the driver, ‘i’m throwing my chips in and leaving this table’. ‘But Mr Dan’, said my understanding driver. ‘you’ve travelled so far, millions of people come to India to see the Taj Mahal. Let me take you to the back side of the building, across the river Yumna to a park from where you will have a full frontal centre page view of the Taj’. And so for 250 rupees I bought back in.
With my shoulders slumped like a defeated back street brawler, my irritation evident in the finger marks in the car seat covers, I dragged myself by the scruff of the neck into the gardens. Indifferent and undesiring, I walked past green hedgerows, over yellowed grass and ill-kept flower beds, past the giant garden hose leaking litres of liquid and past clusters of trees. All the while my view stunted. None of the labyrinthine foliage hinting to Alice at what lay beyond.
Then. In a moment, seeing tourists gawping westward, I grabbed their cue, rotating on the axis of my spine. With my body aligned, my eyes began trotting through the brush, rising beyond the tree line, gathering speed, cresting the horizon, finally sticking glued to the mighty behemoth before them. With my body left stiff, only my lips could move blurting out an impulsive expletive and a stunned, ‘sweet gsus’. There, amidst the pantone greys of the afternoon fog, stood stuck the ghost white, massive monolith, the Taj Mahal.
Appearing exceptionally light and transient, and with the heavy fog smoothing out its fine detail this apparition-like edifice was mesmerising.
The Taj Mahal sat eerily, dominating its stark setting. Other than the suppressed light of the sun, no thing rose to a height greater than it, no thing surrounding it competed with its gargantuan scale. It commanded its space paling all in its vicinity. It’s spires scraped the sky puncturing the atmosphere and the flight of birds above.
Its symmetry, unambiguous. Its white marbly lightness, its bulbous, bubbly domes and the creeping fog metamorphosed this absolute beauty and harmony into an alien-like being. As I sat on the remnants of a stone wall staring, glaring at this treasure, my minds gymnastics envisioned it sitting up, shifting shape, and moving on to a further location. Inking my thoughts on paper, I established that it’s imperative that I get close up to the building.
With my shoulders slumped like a defeated back street brawler, my irritation evident in the finger marks in the car seat covers, I dragged myself by the scruff of the neck into the gardens. Indifferent and undesiring, I walked past green hedgerows, over yellowed grass and ill-kept flower beds, past the giant garden hose leaking litres of liquid and past clusters of trees. All the while my view stunted. None of the labyrinthine foliage hinting to Alice at what lay beyond.
Then. In a moment, seeing tourists gawping westward, I grabbed their cue, rotating on the axis of my spine. With my body aligned, my eyes began trotting through the brush, rising beyond the tree line, gathering speed, cresting the horizon, finally sticking glued to the mighty behemoth before them. With my body left stiff, only my lips could move blurting out an impulsive expletive and a stunned, ‘sweet gsus’. There, amidst the pantone greys of the afternoon fog, stood stuck the ghost white, massive monolith, the Taj Mahal.
Appearing exceptionally light and transient, and with the heavy fog smoothing out its fine detail this apparition-like edifice was mesmerising.
The Taj Mahal sat eerily, dominating its stark setting. Other than the suppressed light of the sun, no thing rose to a height greater than it, no thing surrounding it competed with its gargantuan scale. It commanded its space paling all in its vicinity. It’s spires scraped the sky puncturing the atmosphere and the flight of birds above.
Its symmetry, unambiguous. Its white marbly lightness, its bulbous, bubbly domes and the creeping fog metamorphosed this absolute beauty and harmony into an alien-like being. As I sat on the remnants of a stone wall staring, glaring at this treasure, my minds gymnastics envisioned it sitting up, shifting shape, and moving on to a further location. Inking my thoughts on paper, I established that it’s imperative that I get close up to the building.
The next morning the grey-toned fog hung heavy over the city embalming life and everything in it.
All enveloped by its gooey wake moved in slow motion. Light from cars you could see spread like red juice concentrate in bubbly soda water.
Depressurizing the cabin of the Suzuki, I jumped out and made the slow lunar walk down to the Mausoleum complex where the Taj sat. I handed over the manhandled rupee, grabbed my complimentary bottle of bottled water and breached the supposed silence and peace in which the Mahal sits.
The people chaos is its reality. The flashes of Nikons and Samsungs burn through the retinas of my sky blue eyes. I try my best to avoid the air space of the clicking multitudes. I’m now in a thousand facebook photos and I’ve been instagrammed a bazillion times. ‘Like’ me. All clamour for the pristine shot, but, really, no one gets to see it like Lady Di. The guide that guided me through the history and the craft of the building, had to shoot from the Clint Eastwoodian hip to get me alone with the building. I think he got it.
Seeing the Taj Mahal from two different distances at one, gave me the fat koki perspective, and at the other the finest of the craftsman’s workmanship and detail. Never being on any of my lists to see or do, I have a sense of gratitude to have left Waverley, Johannesburg, South Africa, Africa to land in India, I..N..D..I..A to be standing alongside one of the Seven Wonders of The World. Here’s to Agraphoria.
All enveloped by its gooey wake moved in slow motion. Light from cars you could see spread like red juice concentrate in bubbly soda water.
Depressurizing the cabin of the Suzuki, I jumped out and made the slow lunar walk down to the Mausoleum complex where the Taj sat. I handed over the manhandled rupee, grabbed my complimentary bottle of bottled water and breached the supposed silence and peace in which the Mahal sits.
The people chaos is its reality. The flashes of Nikons and Samsungs burn through the retinas of my sky blue eyes. I try my best to avoid the air space of the clicking multitudes. I’m now in a thousand facebook photos and I’ve been instagrammed a bazillion times. ‘Like’ me. All clamour for the pristine shot, but, really, no one gets to see it like Lady Di. The guide that guided me through the history and the craft of the building, had to shoot from the Clint Eastwoodian hip to get me alone with the building. I think he got it.
Seeing the Taj Mahal from two different distances at one, gave me the fat koki perspective, and at the other the finest of the craftsman’s workmanship and detail. Never being on any of my lists to see or do, I have a sense of gratitude to have left Waverley, Johannesburg, South Africa, Africa to land in India, I..N..D..I..A to be standing alongside one of the Seven Wonders of The World. Here’s to Agraphoria.
