The Taj Mahal, the Red Fort and the crazy traffic

My wakeup call is 4.30 for our 5am departure. When the van arrives I am already waiting, dressed in my floor length ‘Indian’ attire, by the hotel gate in the dark with a huge guard wearing a strange feathered helmet and a smart white uniform; (those Brits really knew how to dress their servants). Jytte and Ole look like me – awake of course - but with that resigned look of wondering which time would be ‘normal’ for us. We haven’t had a single complete night of sleep so far. Rawat steers us past huge on-going road constructions – Delhi will soon have overpasses everywhere – and we pick up Raj, waiting by the roadside in South Delhi, where he lives. The highway fills with the traffic of tuk-tuks, motorbikes, rickety trucks, bikes laden to the max with huge bales of something barely held in place, tractors, or worn-out, resigned oxen, pulling open carts filled with workers. All drive for himself only (I certainly don’t see any women drivers – they are too busy carrying water on their heads or squatting with other women making cow cakes for burning from the huge piles of cow dung lining the road. There is no concept of lanes, much less keeping to them, and the road simply fills with this mixture of transportation moving and weaving in the most impulsive way. There seem to be no rules, nor – we learn - is there a tradition of driving lessons and tests; Raj swears that some of these vehicles are driven by 12yr old boys! Everybody is beeping, and everybody looks only ahead with a sort of deadpan solemn expression – maybe because they realize how very close they may be to their last hour! After a while the sun comes up over the utterly flat landscape, sometimes lined with partly harvested wheat fields, and to our surprise we spot several squatting men defecating here and there – in no particular hurry – with a reassuring bottle of water next to them for post-‘bathroom’ ablutions. White cows and groups of black buffaloes saunter or rest at the roadside, mixed with the growing human morning activity. We stop for Indian breakfast, where I delight in freshly baked and very hot Naan with mild yellow Dal topped with yogurt. It’s not only so very tasty, but also fun to eat.
It’s fairly fast moving along the highway, but when – after 3 hours we reach the outskirts of Agra, the traffic slows down to a maddening crawl. Eventually we pick up Vikram, the young man who will be our guide for the local sights and then we are at the monument. The first sight is breathtaking. The white-gray palace lies at the edge of a flat river, which floats at a lower level. Thus the lovely structure seems to float eerily midair, with groomed paths and water channels all leading towards it. The sun by now is so strong that the white marble hurts your eyes. We are told that abalone shells are mixed with the marble, making the whole structure shimmer at night when there is a full moon – which, regretfully, we won’t see. We take many, many pictures – the guides take more for good measure - and follow the substantial crowd into the tomb area where carved marble trellises shelter the two tombs and all the walls and pillars are decorated with inlaid flowers of agate, turquoise, lapis lazuli, and a flaming orange stone, which becomes hotly transparent under light. Groups of sari-clad women and their children rest picturesquely in shady crannies. There is an air of holiday and pride at being in such a special place dedicated to undying love.
We need to get out of the merciless sun and find a dark restaurant with surprisingly delicious food. Poor Raj is on his last day of fast for a Hindu festival and can only watch us tuck competently into our dal, naan, and so on. Whenever we emerge into the sun we are immediately surrounded by men and boys of all ages hawking all manner of things, mostly postcards. They are very hard to shake off and really irritating. I have adopted a strategy taught by Victor in Mozambique: look straight ahead, never make eye-contact, and never acknowledge their presence. This works fairly well, although I have to laugh when one teenage boy runs over to me, shouting, ‘postcard, postcard,’ and I realize he is furiously messaging on his cell phone at the same time.
After lunch we see the equally lovely Red Fort, a surprise of shady colonnades, tower look-outs, rooms with still visible faint decorations on the walls. The Mughal – who built the Taj for his favorite wife when she died in childbirth, apparently had a sizable harem, housed in attractive quarters facing his own. Possibly inspired by the surroundings Vikham explains to me that Indian men find saris very pleasing because they reveal a little bit of the tummy! He also confides he finds my skirt really stylish and wonders whether I got it in Europe (and not at a Delhi street market for $2). Monkeys, some rather large, play in the grassy areas, and, as we exit the fort, we are sad when we spot a distraught monkey mom dangling a dead baby monkey on her arm as she scurries through the throng of people, trying – I imagine - to find a place to put it down. The little open-mouthed face is still as she runs, darting worried glances at it, and she is followed by many other monkeys, some with healthy babies hanging on to the belly fur of their moms or dads.
It is 3pm when we head towards Delhi on what will turn out to be a trying and tiring looong drive only lightened up by meeting Raj’s handsome 16yr old son, who is waiting to pick him up near their home. The traffic is, if possible, worse, and it is past 8.30pm when I reach the cool perfection of the Imperial. I freshen up and head for the famous Spice Route restaurant, where I enjoy a solitary pomegranate martini, followed by a vegetable stir-fry and a dewy glass of Languedoc white wine, ‘que ninguem eh de ferro’ – meaning I feel I deserve to finish such a marvelously special day on an equally exquisite note.
Here are the pictures - you may have to copy and paste into your browser:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schateaubriand/TajMahalTheRedFortAndCrazyIndianRoadscene#