Awesome Agra

 

Taj Mahal Nature Walk street facing the eastern gate. We have to go to Agra Fort. The autowallahas are asking 150 rupees. It’s seven or eight kilometers they say. I see an elderly Muslim rickshaw puller going at a decent pace down the lane towards the Taj. It’s a slight descent and his rickshaw rolls with a song. I hark, ‘O rickshaw!’ He puts breaks. He says 40 rupees to the destination for the two of us. The autowallah is hovering nearby. He grunts and snorts accusatively as if the rickshaw puller has stolen his clients.

Autos are not allowed beyond the barricade about 200 meters from where we board the rickshaw. So they have to take a detour through the congested city to reach the fort. The rickshaw puller takes a chance. If he is allowed to cross the barricade and move along the Taj’s outer boundaries, he will need to pedal for just two and half kilometers.

He is going at a nice pace along the gentle slope. ‘O miyanji, turn back! As if you don’t know that rickshaws aren’t allowed beyond this point!’ one of the policemen manning the barricade hollers. The rickshaw puller gives a broad smile and takes an instant sharp U-turn. In fact he answers just through a broad smile to most of your words. He seems to take everything impersonally—nothing personal. He turns back with ease as he would turn around when faced with a wall.

So his shortcut has been belied—for which he asked just 40 rupees—and the only route left is the long-cut which the autos have to take. It means, as per the changed equation, he will have to heave the rickshaw for almost eight kilometers for just 40 rupees. For a person who takes things personally this calculation would immediately suck out fuel from his pedaling legs. But not this man. His smile doesn’t go. It was his offer. The route choice isn’t in his hands now. But he won’t back out from his word. So without any hint of disappointment or complain or any inclination to redraw the deal due to the changed route he focuses on pulling the load up the slope.

It’s a heavy pull. The rickshaw is crawling slowly. You can argue with someone who grumbles, frets about the loss-making deed. He isn’t affected in mind due to the changed situation. We feel his physical exertion. We have no doubt that he will continue pulling for all these eight kilometers without complaining or asking extra money. Such honesty and integrity to one’s word makes you sensitive to the situation. More than him, we feel the weight of his almost unrewarding assignment. His legs would possibly bear the weight to take us all the way for just 40 rupees. But our conscience won’t allow it. We feel the extent of his loss-making assignment.

He is all focused on pulling the rickshaw. ‘Shouldn’t we take an auto because it’s quite far from this side,’ we start discussing, expecting him to agree and propose it himself. But he doesn’t say anything. Just silently pulls. Then we ask him, ‘Shouldn’t we take an auto?’ ‘That also is ok,’ he says casually with a smile. His smile is unaffected by all considerations of the amount of fare, distance plied, weight, etc. He halts. We give him 20 rupees. He accepts it with another beaming smile. The very same smile. He is simply at ease with himself. With that ease of being, the outer flutter of leaves hardly disturbs the inner lamp.

Our spirits uplifted by this gentle brush with a tender and honest soul, giving us a lovely starter for the aesthetic senses, here we are at the Agra fort welcoming us with a marvelous dining prospects of medieval architecture. It’s a vast palace complex involving spacious courts with mansions around; designed brackets supporting the chhajas and lintels; large assembly halls with flat ceilings; glazed tiling and stucco along with ornamental stone carving; harem complex once guarded by chaste women and trustworthy officers. The past pulls you with musty but welcoming force.

Humayun was coronated at Agra fort overlooking river Yamuna. It has double ramparts with massive circular bastions; a broad deep moat, bearing drawbridges, in a semi-circle; four gates in different directions. You feel special while standing in Diwan-i-Am (hall of public audience) with its pillared halls with cusped engrailed arches on the façade and grand columns in triple-aisle deep complexes plastered with white shell lime (over red sand stone). The imperial jharokha (throne) chamber still has enough luxuriance, even after the dusty layers of centuries covering it, to give you an idea of aristocratic opulence. There is a private marble mosque for the harem ladies, enclosed for purdah. You can’t help but appreciate the water tank with cascade and the shahi hamam with its impressive water supply system—closed complex of octagonal halls, interconnected by corridors with jali openings on the river side. Then there is the chain of justice, the regal bell tied to a chain which could be pulled by the commonest of the common to seek justice by directly appealing to the emperor. How I hope that justice was as easily and directly available to the modern citizens; that we had some direct means of being saved from injustice instead of spending our entire lives in the unsurpassable judicial corridors. There are so many things I want to shout. I feel like pulling the chain but it’s not accessible to the visitors; just there for viewing.

And among all this grandeur, the sadness of the historical fact that Shah Jahan spent eight years at Agra fort as a prisoner looking at his soulful salutation to love, Taj Mahal, on the other side of Yamuna.