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India: Day 9
2008.07.17
Agra street with the Taj Mahal in the distance.
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Agra street with the Taj Mahal in the distance.
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Shah Jahan's prison at the Red Fort - it offered a clear view of the Taj Mahal.
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Shah Jahan's prison at the Red Fort - it offered a clear view of the Taj Mahal.
2
Grounds of Itmad-ud-daula
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Grounds of Itmad-ud-daula
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Example of the wine bottle motif throughout the Itmad-ud-daula mausoleum grounds
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Example of the wine bottle motif throughout the Itmad-ud-daula mausoleum grounds
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Itmad-ud-daula mausoleum
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Itmad-ud-daula mausoleum
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Hard to see - but king in a wine bottle (with wine glass below)
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Hard to see - but king in a wine bottle (with wine glass below)
10
Ceiling above the tombs
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Ceiling above the tombs
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Rice paddies between Agra
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Rice paddies between Agra
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I've fallen in love with bullocks.
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I've fallen in love with bullocks.
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A camel caravan right on the main highway! I think our driver was amused at how amused we were.
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A camel caravan right on the main highway! I think our driver was amused at how amused we were.
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Monkeys in Agra.
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Monkeys in Agra.
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More monkeys in Agra.
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More monkeys in Agra.
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More pictures around Agra. Unfortunately, the first picture is pretty representative of Agra as a whole - you can see the Taj Mahal in the distance, but the rest of the city is, to quote Sharadha, "a dump." I don't know if its the loss of all potentially polluting industries from its tax base (an edict in to help preserve the Taj) or if its something else we're unaware of, but it really is sad.
But, anyway, Itmad-ud-daula's mausoleum was our first and main stop of the day before we drove back to Delhi. It's often referred to as "The Baby Taj" but that's really unfair (I highly recommend referring to it that way in front of Sharadha, though - she foams at the mouth & rants beautifully about unjust labels) because it's gorgeous and unique in its own right. It was finished a handful of years ahead of the beginning of the Taj Mahal's construction and one of its most direct predecessors.
It's fun, too, because it has a number of subversive elements. Though Jahangir was officially in charge of this project, the mausoleum honors his parents-in-law & its credit really belongs to his wife, Noor Jahan. Jahangir, much like his grandfather, was a bit overfond of opium & wine. He was also ruthless & married his wife after assassinating her first husband (she'd resisted his attention for years, refusing an imperial annulment of her marriage).
Noor Jahan was responsible for designs of wine bottles, wine glasses and (above) a depiction of a king inside of a wine bottle and many other sly decorative digs. Of more import, she also took over a lot of the running of the Imperium & was a strong, albeit officially unacknowledged, ruler of her time.
