It was on one of those dull and boring days in college when my friend Harish broke this piece of information to me. It immediately brightened me up.
"Dude, there's a cookery competition coming up in Delhi. Wow! I'm so excited"
"That's so cool! So, when are we going?" I asked, with a tone of conviction. I wasn't going to miss this opportunity for anything. It also had back up from college.
"In October. A fortnight from now."
"Brilliant! Gives me all the time in the world to prepare for it." I said.
"What??? Don't tell me you're actually getting ready for the competition. This is so not you." he blurted out immediately.
"Who on earth said anything about the competition dude? I was speaking about preparing for the Delhi trip. Muhaha!!! Who the hell cares about the competition? We're going to lose anyways."
"You have a point there bro. Even I've wanted to visit this place all my life. We definitely can't prepare for the competition in such a short time."
Both of us got lost in our own dreams. But somewhere, somehow, it seemed to have boiled down to one common desire. The desire to see and witness the aura surrounding the magnificent Mughal structure; one of the wonders of the world- The TAJ MAHAL. Obviously, we couldn't be going so close to the monument and return without seeing it. It was also our first North Indian trip.
October 2006: Six friends, representing our college leave Bangalore on the train bound to Hazrat Nizamuddin in New Delhi. After passing through some half a dozen states, visualising their diversities and being amazed at the changes from state to state, we finally reached the Capital city after a long 36 hours.
The first day of our visit was spent by running around the college campus, visiting a few places in Old Delhi like Chandni Chowk, Jumma Masjid and The Red fort, eating out, and shopping. The thought of the competition was nowhere on our minds. Being October, the weather wasn't too bad either.
A week went by. We participated in all the competitions that we had enrolled for (obviously we didn't win any), travelled by the Delhi Metro, visited some more places in Delhi such as the Lotus temple, India Gate, Connaught Place and Palika bazaar, and also planned our Agra trip within this time. My dad, who happened to be in Delhi at the time even booked a car for us to go to the capital city of the Mughal empire.
Friday, 13th October, 2006: We were ready with our packed bags for the trip to Agra. The car arrived early in the morning at 6am. Our destination was only 120 km away from us; a three hour journey from Delhi.
My friend Harish was the most excited among us all. He was a lovestruck bloke, and what more could he ask for than visiting the biggest tribute ever made for love, the Taj Mahal. He had also promised to buy his girlfriend a miniature replica of the mausoleum made out of marble as a token of his love.
Agra wasn't how I had imagined it to be. It was hot, filthy and dusty, had narrow roads mobbed with vehicles, bullock carts, people, and it even had a generous smattering of cows, as if the ones that I mentioned earlier weren't enough already. It's leather industries produced a blatant stink, while happily disposing their effluents into the river Yamuna. The water in the river resembled a big open sewage system which ran across the city. It was literally black in colour.
We reached Taj Mahal at around 10 am. As we walked towards its gates, unaware of the big shock awaiting to numb us all, a guide approached us. "Please come this way sir. I will take you through a secret entrance from where you can have a nice peek of the Taj Mahal" he shouted out in an attracting manner. "What do you mean you'll take us through a secret entrance, eh? We're not thugs or ruffians to go through some stupid secret entrance. We'll go through the main entrance and watch the structure, the right way. The way millions of people from all over the world do it." I said to him out of annoyance and sheer ignorance. I didn't want somebody to loot us of our money in this manner.
"But, the Taj Mahal remains closed for general public on Fridays. Didn't you know that?" he said with a condescending tone. "Only Muslims are allowed inside to do their Friday prayers" he added. That was enough said. We were dumbstruck already. Coming so close to the most famous monument this side of the country and not being able to go inside it was a rude shock for which we weren't prepared. We even contemplated on buying ourselves the skull caps worn by Muslims in order to gain entry, but it wasn't practical.
The "secret entrance" to catch a glimpse of the Taj came in the form of an old house located very "close" to it. We had to pay a small amount of money to the owner of the house, who in turn led us to the terrace from where we could watch the place we had come so far to see. Even this venture turned out to be disappointing as all we could see was a dull and zoomed out version of the Taj. Harish was almost in tears. We left the place after taking a few snaps of ourselves with the Taj in the background, located somewhere on the other side of the horizon. We even got a glimpse of it from the Agra Red Fort, but it didn't satiate our desire. This trip turned out to be one of the biggest ironies in my life which came with a hefty price tag too.
After visiting the Agra Red Fort and Akbar's tomb at Sikandra, we proceeded towards Delhi. On our way back, Harish and I promised ourselves that we would come back to this place again just to see the Taj Mahal. The only conditions we had for our visit were: the next visit would be with our respective wives, and the day we visit it will definitely not be a Friday.
October 2006: Six friends, representing our college leave Bangalore on the train bound to Hazrat Nizamuddin in New Delhi. After passing through some half a dozen states, visualising their diversities and being amazed at the changes from state to state, we finally reached the Capital city after a long 36 hours.
The first day of our visit was spent by running around the college campus, visiting a few places in Old Delhi like Chandni Chowk, Jumma Masjid and The Red fort, eating out, and shopping. The thought of the competition was nowhere on our minds. Being October, the weather wasn't too bad either.
A week went by. We participated in all the competitions that we had enrolled for (obviously we didn't win any), travelled by the Delhi Metro, visited some more places in Delhi such as the Lotus temple, India Gate, Connaught Place and Palika bazaar, and also planned our Agra trip within this time. My dad, who happened to be in Delhi at the time even booked a car for us to go to the capital city of the Mughal empire.
Friday, 13th October, 2006: We were ready with our packed bags for the trip to Agra. The car arrived early in the morning at 6am. Our destination was only 120 km away from us; a three hour journey from Delhi.
My friend Harish was the most excited among us all. He was a lovestruck bloke, and what more could he ask for than visiting the biggest tribute ever made for love, the Taj Mahal. He had also promised to buy his girlfriend a miniature replica of the mausoleum made out of marble as a token of his love.
Agra wasn't how I had imagined it to be. It was hot, filthy and dusty, had narrow roads mobbed with vehicles, bullock carts, people, and it even had a generous smattering of cows, as if the ones that I mentioned earlier weren't enough already. It's leather industries produced a blatant stink, while happily disposing their effluents into the river Yamuna. The water in the river resembled a big open sewage system which ran across the city. It was literally black in colour.
We reached Taj Mahal at around 10 am. As we walked towards its gates, unaware of the big shock awaiting to numb us all, a guide approached us. "Please come this way sir. I will take you through a secret entrance from where you can have a nice peek of the Taj Mahal" he shouted out in an attracting manner. "What do you mean you'll take us through a secret entrance, eh? We're not thugs or ruffians to go through some stupid secret entrance. We'll go through the main entrance and watch the structure, the right way. The way millions of people from all over the world do it." I said to him out of annoyance and sheer ignorance. I didn't want somebody to loot us of our money in this manner.
"But, the Taj Mahal remains closed for general public on Fridays. Didn't you know that?" he said with a condescending tone. "Only Muslims are allowed inside to do their Friday prayers" he added. That was enough said. We were dumbstruck already. Coming so close to the most famous monument this side of the country and not being able to go inside it was a rude shock for which we weren't prepared. We even contemplated on buying ourselves the skull caps worn by Muslims in order to gain entry, but it wasn't practical.
The "secret entrance" to catch a glimpse of the Taj came in the form of an old house located very "close" to it. We had to pay a small amount of money to the owner of the house, who in turn led us to the terrace from where we could watch the place we had come so far to see. Even this venture turned out to be disappointing as all we could see was a dull and zoomed out version of the Taj. Harish was almost in tears. We left the place after taking a few snaps of ourselves with the Taj in the background, located somewhere on the other side of the horizon. We even got a glimpse of it from the Agra Red Fort, but it didn't satiate our desire. This trip turned out to be one of the biggest ironies in my life which came with a hefty price tag too.
After visiting the Agra Red Fort and Akbar's tomb at Sikandra, we proceeded towards Delhi. On our way back, Harish and I promised ourselves that we would come back to this place again just to see the Taj Mahal. The only conditions we had for our visit were: the next visit would be with our respective wives, and the day we visit it will definitely not be a Friday.
Taj Mahal remains a favourite place to visit...hopefully sometime soon.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip anyways..abt the fridays;-D
Glad to be of some help ;)
ReplyDelete