Two Personal Journeys Offer Glimpse of India’s Soul : Afternoon of Mourning at Agra’s Fabled Taj Mahal

“Have you seen the Taj?” Raju the waiter asked conspiratorially in New Delhi as he set the tea on the table. The linen was crisp and white. His cuff was frayed and stained.

I was having my tea on the veranda of the old Imperial Hotel where memories of the British Raj still echoed faintly along the quiet corridors.

It was my first visit to India and it had been a powerful culture shock. The maimed beggars crying in the streets. The grisly poverty displayed like some buskined dumb show. The crowds of dark-skinned men in scruffy white dhotis and the women in brilliantly colored saris, tinkling with bangles and laughter.

The city had been engulfed by this crush of dusty humanity, all covered with a fine patina of grit and grime and greed. I had been shocked.

I had retreated to the haven of high tea at the Imperial.

“Have you been to see the Taj, sahib?” Raju insisted. “No? Oh, but you will,” he said with a knowing smile. “Everyone sees the Taj.”

I had resisted. I had done all the standard tourist things in Delhi. I had gone to see the Red Fort. The guide there said it was constructed by Shah Jahan, the Mogul emperor who built the Taj Mahal. “Have you been yet to see the Taj?”

I had gone to see the Jama Masjid, the great Muslim mosque. I toured the government buildings, which looked like something out of a British epic. I had shopped on Janpath Road where the shops were full of chubby Nepalese merchants with white teeth and dark, smoky goods that gleamed of brass and intrigue.

But everywhere I had gone, they had asked me of the Taj. It is only a day trip, sahib. Very comfortable, sahib. Very inexpensive.

At last I gave in. I took the day train to Agra, the ancient capital of the Mogul kings. The home of the Taj. I took a taxi from the train station to the Mughal Sheraton, a sort of Western oasis within sight of the Taj, and fiddled away the morning, putting off my pilgrimage. But by midafternoon I could delay no longer. They were only too happy to oblige. “You have come to see the Taj, of course,” the taxi driver said as he opened the door. He deposited me at the gate amid the inevitable swarm of trinket salesmen.

I ducked my head and ran through the gate, an enormous structure blocking the view of the Taj itself. But then I stopped, caught up probably as the architect had intended, by the view which lay before me. There it was. The storied Taj. On the banks of the Yamuna River, in the light of the fading afternoon, with its great luminous dome the color of silver and pearl, it stood serene above the muck and poverty that lay just beyond its marbled walls. A jewel in the dust.

I stood on the inner steps of the great gate and looked across the dusty greenery of the once-formal gardens and listened to the oohs and aahs of my fellow sightseers. And yes, it was a lovely building. And yes, it undoubtedly deserved the world’s admiration. And yes, and yes . . . But still I wondered why I had come.

I knew of its fame, of course. Of all the world’s man-made structures, the Taj Mahal was clearly one of the most famous and most beautiful. It had become so famous, in fact, it had become the unofficial symbol of India. It certainly had an impressive history.

Shah Jahan, the Mogul emperor who was the absolute ruler of India in the mid-17th Century, constructed the Taj as a memorial to his favorite wife, Mumtaz. It is said he had thousands of concubines and yet only truly loved this one woman. When she died, he was devastated. He turned his vast resources to the building of a tomb befitting her memory. It took 20,000 laborers more than 20 years to build. Upon its completion, the Mogul king each year held a memorial service in the tomb, where the body of his queen lay beneath a sheet of woven pearls surrounded by screens of solid gold.

Two thousand soldiers guarded the grounds. The floors were covered with Persian carpets. Silver candlesticks and golden lamps adorned the walls. Precious stones were inlaid along the walls. The interior was redolent with the soft strains of music and the sweet smoke of incense, with the gleam of jewels and with prayer. It was quite a place.

I heard this from the guides as we walked the long walk from the great gate to the Taj itself. As I came closer, I realized the tomb was a huge building, a monumental achievement in stone. No one knows who designed it.

But as I stood among the crowds of Indians surging beneath the great, echoing dome, the Westerners all dressed in uniforms of jeans and Nikes, I felt let down. What was the matter?

I went out and away from the crowds and stood near the river balustrade to watch the wading ibis along the mud flats of the Yamuna. Vultures were there, too. They shimmered in the heat. It was October and a rain was building.

Despite my resistance to coming here, I had sincerely expected to stand beneath the Taj and experience the sublime appreciation of the Taj’s beauty that one so often reads about in the froufrou of the guide books and historical commentaries. Instead, standing where I was, seeing the pale glow of the marble along the great crenulated dome at sunset, I experienced not gladness but a sense of loss.

I watched the cowherds gathering the buffalo across the river as the first tentative raindrops fell, spattering the dust on the flagstones, so carefully cut, so carefully fitted. What was it that pulled us here, I wondered.

I thought of old Shah Jahan, who in his later years was overthrown by his son and imprisoned in the Red Fort on the banks of the Yamuna down the river from the Taj. He died, it is said, a helpless and aged prisoner on a stone bed in the fort. Next to his bed had been placed a small mirror arranged so that it reflected the distant Taj into his darkening eyes. According to traditional accounts, in his last hours he stared helplessly (or hopefully?) into that mirror until he succumbed to death, his body stiffening, his eyes still open, but gazing uncomprehendingly at the reflected image of--what? A stone monument to a dead woman?

I thought not. It had to be something more. I wondered if his lovely Taj had given the dying king a glimpse of whatever it was that drew us all to this place like Minolta-esque moths to an architectonic flame. Whatever it was, it wasn’t made of stone. And it wasn’t bone and it wasn’t even beauty, though that was close.

“We all know that something is eternal,” Thornton Wilder once said, knowing that we are drawn to love in whatever form it may appear. Even within stone.

With low rumbles of thunder, the rain arrived. Rain slashed across the Yamuna, startling the birds into flight.

I ducked beneath a portico and watched the Shah’s tired pleasure gardens turn sullenly to mud. The rain covered everything now. It ran off the dome of the Taj Mahal in sheets, coursing through the gardens, anointing the once-gilded balustrades, cleansing the dust in clear rivulets, bringing coolness to the coming evening.

Everyone was leaving now, splashing through the rain. I left, too. I went back to Delhi for another cup of tea.

GUIDEBOOK

All About the Taj Mahal

Getting there: Two trains are available for day trips from New Delhi to Agra, site of the Taj Mahal: the Taj Express, and the faster Shatabdi Express, both of which arrive in Agra between 8 and 10 a.m. and get you back into New Delhi by about 10 p.m. the same day. A round-trip, first-class AC (air-conditioned) train ticket is about $30, which can be reserved in advance by calling New York-based Hari World Travel (212-957-3000), the designated U.S. agents for the Indian Railways system. Tickets include two airline-style meals--breakfast going and dinner returning.

In New Delhi, try to arrange for your hotel to handle the purchase of train tickets. Or go to the second floor of the New Delhi train station, find the foreign tourist counter, and show your passport and visa; payment is accepted in rupees or traveler’s checks, but not U.S. dollars.

Travel tips: On the day of your trip, try to be at the train station half an hour before departure. Upon arrival in Agra, expect to be engulfed by taxi drivers and tour guides vying for your business. One way to avoid them is to take a taxi to the Mughal Sheraton, a first-rate hotel with a staff used to assisting Western travelers, from which you can take a taxi to the Taj Mahal after a meal or booking a room; reservations through the Sheraton network: (800) 325-3535.

Last year, India raised the Taj Mahal entrance fee for foreigners from about 8 cents to $10.

Safety: A State Department advisory urging tourists to defer travel to New Delhi (issued in February after destruction of a Moslem mosque by Hindu extremists) was officially cancelled March 15. However a current hot spot is the state of Jammu and Kashmir on the country’s northernmost border, where an insurrection is being waged by Muslim separatists. Although foreigners have not been specific targets of violence in India, as always, it is wise to take precautions: Check local news sources for current information, observe local customs and be alert and aware of your surroundings at all times.

For more information: Contact the Government of India Tourist Office, 3550 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 204, Los Angeles 90010, (213) 380-8855.