We Survived The Wall

We went to Rishikesh on Friday for a weekend of bonding with the Ganga river. Rishikesh is a big hippie town by the Ganga river. The Beatles spent a month in an Ashram there so it's famous for that as well. Saturday we went river rafting on the Ganga. This was my first time and I didn’t know what to expect. Eddie, our guide, was very cautious. We had to go through all these safety precautions before we got in the raft. I was a bit worried about tipping over especially because the water was really cold. The first rapid we went on was a 4 on a scale where 6 is the most challenging. Before we got to “The Wall,” Eddie gave us a pep talk on what to expect. He said that there was a possibility that we tip over and give us detailed instructions on what to do when we tipped over. All the precaution talk made me think that we really were gonna tip over. We went through it and we didn’t tip. I think he was just trying to get us psyched about the wall to have a little fun. It wasn’t that bad at all.

Holi Mubharak Ho!

We celebrated Holi in Delhi today. Holi, also known as Dhulheti, Dhulandi or Dhulendi, is the a celebration of Spring. We celebrated by throwing colored powder and colored water at each other.

My Taj Mahal Story

It feels like I have been waiting to see the Taj Mahal forever. The moment I heard its story, I fell in love with it and was immediately envious of the heroine. I heard that it was built by a Shah for his beloved wife who passed away. I always thought how romantic men were back then. They built honored their wives with alluring shrines. These days you hardly hear love stories like that. I wanted to learn more about the Queen. I wondered what was her secret appeal that made the Shah devote his life offering her memory such a tribute.

After a 5 hour drive from Delhi we got to Agra where the Taj is. The car service provided us a free guide, Shams. Shams was an amazing guide/photographer/comedian. He has lived in Agra all his life and is as much in love with the Taj Mahal as the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan was when he built it in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

As we started the tour Shams told us the story about Shah Jahan and his favorite wife who actually turned out to be of Persian decent. Her real name was Arjumand Banu Begum. When I heard she was Persian, this perked up my ear and everyone could tell that it also inflated my head. I was proud that my ancestors had some role in this magnificient site that has attracked thousands and thousands of people to it from all over the world for hundreds of years. It is truely breathtaking. Shams sensed my rejoice in tidbits of information relating to Persian contribution so he took great pleasure in teasing me with other Persian contributions to the Taj. This was our joke of the day, all the great contributions of Persians to the Taj Mahal. I told them if we kept it up there wouldn't be enough room in the photo of my head and the Taj.

I think I am no longer envious of Banu. Shams told us that Banu died giving birth to her 14th child. Being pregnant for 14 years doesn't sound very romantic. I guess it was common back then but when I heard this I envied her less. Shah Jahan was so grief stricken that he spent the next 22 years of his life creating this mausoleum. During that time poor Banu was in some regular coffin and her body was moved around twice to different grave sites until finally he finished the Taj and she got to rest. When I heard this part, I really stopped being envious of Banu. The poor lady was pregnant for the majority of their marriage and then even after her death her body didn't get any rest until 22 years later when he finally buried her in final restig place. I mentioned to Shams how sad Shah Jahan must have been after the death but then he pointed out that Shah Jahan had at least 3 other wives and 500 concubines! This is when I decided Banu could keep her Taj.

The Taj Mahal

It took 22 years to build the Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan, a Mogul emperor, built it for his second wife.

The Taj Mahal Crowd

I am going to be in Delhi for the next week and a half so it provide a great opportunity to see the sites close to here. I thought that Agra where the Taj is relatively close. We got up at 5am to leave the apartment by 6am but didn't get there til 11am. I slept most of the way but woke up to something thumbing on the window. I was startled to see a monkey pressing its face to the window. I thought at first it's a bad dream. Side-effects of the monkey attack I had in Mumbia but it turned out to be real. We were at the toll about to cross the state line and there was a guy with a monkey on the leash doing tricks.. the monkey was doing tricks. There was another guy with a rattle snake and flute next to him trying to entertain us with the snake dance. Then vendors started flocking our windows to sell stuff..I wanted to go back to sleep and close the curtain on this freak show but couldn't tell what was triggering all this. Then I noticed a nice black car parked in front of us and a naive tourist giving money to one of the monkey guys.. Ah silly tourists have to always ruin it for the rest of us. He slowly learned his lesson as more and more people started lining outside his window for change. Although the Taj is amazing it does bring out all these tourists and in turn vendors. I felt like I was haggled more around the Taj than anywhere else in India.