Agra and surrounds
From the CouchSurfing Wiki, an informal workspace which anyone can edit.
This is a cut paste of posts made by several people in India and Women's Traveller's groups. Its being updated, so people feel free to add on.
Posted July 29th, 2008 - 5:11 am by Monolita from Cochin, India
agra is a wonderful place if you can connect up with locals and escape the tourist snare..and i think there are a few girls here from agra...use them ;-)...
its old market (where the tour will just never take you), and seeing the taj from the other side of the yamuna...or losing yourself in the alleys of the old city near the fort area...all done by the cycle rickshaws...the sweetmeats in the old market area...the famous dalmooth and petha from the kinari bazaar...all the mughlai cuisine which are found all over..the kebabs and the tandoori and the breads...i remember this wonderful dhabaa on the highway to delhi just off agra where i had the best dal makhni of my life...
and then fatehpur sikri...what can i say about a place which i could draw from memory at one point of time!..its amazingly articulate spaces, spatial geometry, the congruence of that to the human mind so exquisitely worked out...the pachisi court where the king used to play chess with his queen..the amazing architectural representation of the best of the two great ideologies, synthesised to its zenith - the din-i-illahi...a masterpiece of planning...which like all good things could not resist the ravages of reality...
Posted July 29th, 2008 - 9:00 am by ShAi* from Mumbai, India
Monolita I completely agree with you that Fatehpur Sikhri is not to be missed :) Especially the Panch Mahal 9the five storied palace and the Anup Talab where the legenderay clasicla Indian musician Tansen used to sit and sing. I also think that the Itmad ud Daulat, aka the baby Taj is an interesting piece of architecture as it did inspire aspects of the Taj.... In Agra i also love the cycle rikshaw around town and just wandering around the chaotic city. :)
Posted July 29th, 2008 - 10:17 am by Monolita from Cochin, India
the itimad ud daula is noor jehan's father's tomb in agra.
the filigree work in marble started by akbar in humayun's tomb and seen also in fatehpur sikri, reached its epitome in the itimad ud daula, where the building is supposed to be carved like a piece of jewellery...this pietra dura is what is seen later used extensively by shah jahan..though in taj its use was minimised to keep to its classical elegance...
the taj's more celebrated fore runner though happens to be none other than the humayun's tomb, where the particular form of the onion dome (so different from the byzantian and the renaissance dome) along with its two tiered built form was first explored in terms of proportions and scaling. however, while planning the taj, shah jahan took the various codified tenets of the cenotaph being the centre of the geometric garden (the spiritual centre - the point of zero movement and hence death and eternity), and placed it on its head right at one end, more in accordance to the hindu progression and the journey's end philosophy (i like to think it was just because he wanted the climax to come right at the end).
humayun's tomb and the taj are also the very few examples of an enclosed tomb for muslim kings...the others, as in akbar's tomb as well as itimad ud daula - the tomb is open to sky as was the format used by most islamic tombs of the middle east...
the funny thing about the taj is that while you see it from every part of the town, you do not see it at all while approaching it, and it bursts on to you just as you step into the portico of the gateway to the monument. the entire pedestrian journey to the monument, is replete with symobolism and fantastic efforts at scaling the building to the human scale, such that you can only be aware of its actual monumentality when you are at the foot of the building. this was done by scaling the building blocks, and hiding the staircase in the base of the monument, and the scaling of the calligraphy.
have been mesmerised everytime with the sheer genius that went behind the architecture of this monument - the beauty, the elegance, the poise, the restraint...how tweaking just a bit of the proportions achieved so much more in effect...how the perspectives are worked out, how each visual framing is so classic...yes the original mughal garden is lost thanks to the brits, but the essential planning and spatial geometrics remain the same, and to me the mughals were masters of that.
working with ASI, i had a brilliant chance of staying in the taj premise till late one night (1 am by the time we finished up documentation), and the brilliance of the monument bathed in moonlight reflected on the water...hell, if someone tells me that does not bring a lump to your throat, they must be cynics of the first order...
helga..don't miss it in the moonlight and at the sunrise...you will never forget those sights...
Posted July 29th, 2008 - 1:46 pm by CATFACE from Mumbai, India
Now my interest is piqued because I may just go there later this year and have been reading up. Get a load of this. " The translucent white marble was brought from Rajasthan, the jasper from Punjab, jade and crystal from China. The turquoise was from Tibet and the Lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, while the sapphire came from Sri Lanka and the carnelian from Arabia. In all, twenty eight types of precious and semi-precious stones were inlaid into the white marble." All the jewels have long been lost to thieves, but the floral motifs remain. And then I read that the original gardens were Mughal style with fountains and fruit trees and roses. Mahtab Bagh means Moonlight Garden, which sounds so lovely. But the British have turned it into London style parks. Here are a few links if you'd like to read more. asi.nic.in/asi_monu_whs_fatehpursikri.asp en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Agra_Itimad-ud-Daula\'s_Tom... I love this image though. Again by Steve McCurry. Tradition and progress. www.wuwm.com/media/lake_effect/gallery/112206/slides/INDIA-1...
