Visit to The Taj Mahal

The urge to write

Writing a blog post after a long time. While it is in the nature of a travelogue, the thought process started off as somebody laughed at some minister in Goa who went on record to say "Local tourists are the scum of the earth".

Funnily enough, in the group in which this was posted, this receded quickly from being a political post to an interesting discussion on how we behave as tourists in India.

While this discussion was going on, I was about to visit the Taj and was feeding the group with a running commentary as to the environs of the Taj and this prompted the creation of this article.

The Approach

A Random Store outside a monument

The first picture I took was outside a place that looked like it was just behind the walls of the Taj. While it wasn't, it was a monument of tourist significance nevertheless.

The sheer level of dirt that we somehow find acceptable boggles the mind. While the sense of horror diminished once I realized that this was not the Taj, one cannot help but feel that we as a nation need to raise our acceptable level of cleanliness anywhere.

Anyway, to continue the narrative, no sooner we parked than we were surrounded by people wanting us to buy this or do that. Among the first people to harangue us was a guide who pointed to a card and said his charges 'officially' were some Rs. 1,000 odd. We ignored the guy and were soon accosted by another person who said his charges were Rs. 500 including the price of entrance and a promise to get around the large queue that would be naturally there on a Sunday. We eventually picked one such guide though the thought process was more in the nature of 'helping the economy' than any historical information. Of course 'jumping the queue' would also have played its part; we Indians like nothing better than jumping queues / beating the system.

The first thing the guide (Rizwan) proceeded to do was to ensure we used paid loos rather than the free ones. Since the charge was extremely nominal, we rationalized saying that the free ones were possibly stinking. The second thing he conned us into doing was buying some booties (for visiting the mosque) at Rs. 10 / pair. We could have got them later at Rs. 5 but how were we to know. Still we contributed to making a kid happier so that was fine. Though, the guide made the kid give him a pair free of cost. This should have alerted me, but I was too happy being with my son.

Rizwan made us avoid the main West Entrance and took us to the South Entrance. This was via a khufiya steep staircase which led to a path that took us through the residences of the locals.

In these narrow by lanes you could see two wheelers, and even a car which was quite wondrous since it seemed to be in active use. 

The highlight though of the trek through these gully's was an apothecary (Okay, even we have been bitten by the Shashi Tharoor bug!).  Read the sign that is hung out on the right. In case you are finding it difficult, it says अंग्रेजी दवाएं which translates to English medicine.

The Queue

We then queued up to enter. And Rizwan duly managed to pull us up the queue. While we felt guilty doing this, we acknowledge that this is the thing Indians are best at. Jumping queues. Though, if you stop to thing about it, if all the guides are ensuring that their flock jumps queues, then how will anybody benefit? And how about the general public who do not want / cannot afford them?

Having said the above, the value of the guide was more in entering via this approach. While it would have saved us 10-15 minutes when we entered, by the time we exited this difference could easily have been an hour even if everybody stood diligently in queue.

While on the subject of queues, I have to mention that I saw excellent wheelchair arrangement for elderly and disabled people, presumably at a fee, but that is acceptable.

 

The queue itself was regular. There were separate queues for men and women. However, each had only one metal detector which is what caused the bottleneck. And the length of the queue made anything more than a superfluous patting down impossible to achieve. You can see the picture on the right above proudly stating this is a plastic free zone. We were also told not to bring food and eatables inside. However, immediately on entry I heard somebody say "I forgot I had some Polo inside my jacket so I fooled the checker into not checking the jacket". I dare say the guy would not have touched the Polo inside but it goes to show the shoddiness of the check.

The Taj

Once past the checker we were into the compound and we could not wait till we crossed the threshold to the Taj to click our first photograph

The Courtyard before the entrance to the Taj

Here we were given the spiel of Mumtaz being the 3rd of Shahjehan's wives. They married when she was 20. She died at the age of 39 in her 14th childbirth. Shahjehan's first two wives were arranged marriages while this was a love marriage. The other two wives died childless.

There must have been 4 sons and 10 daughters. Aurangzeb was apparently the third son who had 3 of his brothers killed to ascend to the throne. All this history is courtesy Rizwan and I make no claim to the accuracy thereof.

Anyway, we went inside and straight away we saw another instance of the scant disregard we Indians hold for signs of discipline.

The sign on the left reads "Please do not sit on the rails" I went close to click the sign, but I had to click them with the sign. The women had no clue what I was doing. And they couldn't be bothered about the sign.

At any rate the Taj is so beautiful that its beauty transcends all these minor irritants. And viewing it with close family is like icing on the cake.

Being a Sunday, you can see the crowds. The queue at the level of the mosque actually rotates round the mosque comes down and goes round the monument below as well. We clicked a few more photos around the monument which I am sharing below.

A Side View of the Taj

Better than a selfie

Father and Son

Thoughts after the Spectacle

Booties spilling out of the bin

Since it would have taken us like forever to visit the mosque, we decided not to visit the mosque and the booties were useless to us.

However, those who used the booties, we found to our dismay, were slightly less than diligent in their disposal.

I guess we should be happy with the attempt to at least dispose next to a dustbin. You could arguably say that the administration should organize regular disposal from such bins and being Sunday, should do it more than once.

But, the thought persists; Can one not persist with the booties and dispose them where it is possible to do so neatly? We will not see foreigners do this. Nor would we do this abroad.

Why then, do we treat our own country like trash?




The rest of the visit consisted of being conned into buying pethas just outside the monument itself (tremendous cognitive dissonance going on there, but caveat emptor all the way) and a horse ride back to the car. The objective of said horse ride was to provide a small boost to the economy there. Totally unnecessary, but felt like doing something for the public there even if they were looting me mildly.

And so ended a great morning at the Taj suitable capped with comestibles and appropriate fluids.

Things to Remember

Watch the guides. Make sure you hold them to what they say (I was not diligent enough, so I cannot complain) even if you overpay them.

Do not grudge overpaying them. We have seen enough forwards about how we negotiate the last penny with the roadside vendor and then extravagantly tip in upmarket joints. This is where you apply that lesson. It makes a difference to them. Mind you, I am saying be generous, not stupid.