I can’t emphasize how great it was to spend time with Meetu’s family in Delhi for three nights. The warm family environment and adorable kids recharged some batteries in serious need. Due to a late departure caused by parking space follies, I pulled out of Meetu’s drive at 8:30am. A solid hour after I would have liked. The extraction from Delhi which followed was pure hell. Add morning gridlock to an already abominable set of traffic conditions, mix in morning haze with piss poor air quality, and you have lovely start to your day.
The 200km to Agra were straight forward in both the literally and figurative sense and about three hours south of Delhi I entered what will be my final state in India: Uttar Pradesh. With a population over 160 million and home to two of India’s must-visit sites, ‘The UP’ is both a blockbuster and a basket case. One of India’s poorest states, the depths of poverty visible from the roadway is startling to say the least.
The topography of UP is Nebraska-flat and the vegetation is Kansas-green. When not momentarily passing through forgettable towns the lush endless greenery makes you feel safe, warm, and comfortable. It wasn’t long after passing into UP that I pulled over and went for the ipod. It felt like a J-Cash type of day and Live from San Quentin quickly found its place on the box. It wasn’t long into his prison set when everything just felt wrong. The music was too loud and the increasing level of blight and hardship unfolding before my eyes begged my full attention and respect. I yanked the lone earplug out and rode the balance of the day completely focused on the surrounding faces and places.
About 30km north of Agra I pulled into one of the three petrol station brands that dot India’s roadways. The Tuna chugs oil like it was a sophomore beer on initiation night and I knew by the dip stick that it was overdue for black gold. I pulled into the station and the entire service crew quickly engulfed me. The head chieftain quickly led me inside to peruse the wall o’ lubricants. (I recognize my decision to include the following makes me look like a complete idiot despite having no significant barring on the story.) There on the wall was an endless supply of legitimate looking engine oil in yellow bottles, each with a car icon on its front. The chieftain was adamant this was the oil I wanted and so like many decisions over here I took this with another leap of faith and belief that these oilmen knew their oil. We topped off the bike, I handed over $6 dollars in rupee, shook hands with the entire crew, and pulled back onto the highway for the final stretch…
Agra. How do I describe Agra? It’s difficult because I want to do it justice more than any other place I’ve visited. See Agra isn’t the prettiest city in India and it doesn’t have the best food or the comfiest guest houses. In fact it’s rather brash and happens to be crawling with overly persistent Indians who don’t know the meaning of No Thank You. Yet I had a response to Agra unlike any positive response I’d had elsewhere. I guess the only way to put it is that until I visited Agra I never felt like I truly visited India. Every country has a beating heart and every country has a living soul. Mumbai and Delhi keep India’s arteries pumping and greet international visitors by rightfully knocking them on their ass. Agra then picks them up, throws its arms around them and reminds them why they came here in the first place. Agra makes you fall in love with India because Agra is its soul.
If you could have pulled me aside in Bangkok back in mid-January and asked me to describe what I thought India would look and feel like I would have said something about filth and color and hustle and blazing suns and mouth-watering food and shoeless child smiling and spirituality and breath-taking beauty and complete shock. Agra checked every box in the most perfect of ways. I had been falling for India since Mumbai but it was Agra that sealed the deal.
…
It was mid afternoon with the sun high in the sky when I rolled past the towering red Agra Fort and officially arrived. I had a pretty good idea in which part of the tourist hub I wanted to seek shelter for two nights so I set off in that direction. Before long I took a wrong turn down a narrow cobblestone street overflowing with tiny shoeless children running to and fro completely oblivious to the thundering motorbike inching along towards them in 1st gear. They were so small I could have rolled over three of them and not been jolted from my seat. And then I saw him. Naked from the waist down and squatting slightly off center of the one lane road was a doughy little Indian boy who couldn’t have been more than three years old. His immobile location near the center of the lane forced me to a crawl to ensure I didn’t run him over. Just after locking eyes with him I saw a stream of brown sludge ooze out his backside into a tiny mount on the street. Complete shock. Naked infants pooping freely in the streets…now this was the India I had pictured in my head!
I finally got my bearings and located my strip of accommodations choices. After checking out the first place I came outside to start the bike and continue on. I kicked the starter and the bike produced a noise I hadn’t heard before, and when the engine did finally come to life it died every time I sat idly in neutral. Uh-oh. This is not good. I essentially had to keep the engine in 1st gear and the bike moving or it stalled. Panic. Oh this is not good at all. Here I’d enjoyed a brilliant day of worry-free riding and suddenly my future was clouded with what ifs. What if the engine was finally communicating that it’d had enough? My tourist day to follow was quickly starting to look like a Where’s Waldo mechanics hunt.
I quickly recognized I had bigger fish to fry than finding the perfect hotel so I retreated back inside and asked for the overpriced room. When they said it would be ready in thirty minutes I sat down to think. It wasn’t exactly rocket science. What two irregular events had just taken place within the span of an hour? The bike was misbehaving and I’d put in new oil. Bingo. Must have been the wrong oil. I dashed outside, said a prayer, and started him up. 4km later we limped into the Indian Oil petrol station and found a familiar display case containing not just yellow bottles (for car engines) but red bottles (4-stroke motorbikes) and green bottles (2-stroke motorbikes). I grabbed two liters of the correct 4-stroke lube and pushed the bike across the street to the local grease monkey for my second oil change in as many hours. Black sludge out…golden salvation in. The Tuna was back.
After checking in and cleaning up I set out on foot to feed. Not twenty steps out the front door the bicycle rickshaw wallahs started at it. I’ve dealt with these people all over India and my volley to their serve is pretty standard. To whatever service and/or good I’m being offered I politely reply “no thank you” and continue on without breaking stride. 6 out of 10 times the guy continues his pitch and attempts to go stride for stride with 6’1”. Inevitably they lose patience and peel off. The rickshaw wallahs in Agra are an entirely different breed. Since I can’t out-walk their wheels they simply peddle on and on and drone on and on reiterating their original pitch. Apparently in Agra a Western “no thank you” translates to “please sir, continue your pitch.” On two occasions the droning got so tiresome I crossed four lanes of traffic to elude them. I couldn’t help but laugh both times when they cut across oncoming traffic to rejoin me. The persistence and length these men will go to earn $0.10usd is remarkably impressive but sadly indicative of the daily economic struggle facing most Indian males. Hustle.
I love eating on the street. Plan and simple. In the not too distant future I will long for the days of Indian street food, so while I’m still in its streets I’m making every day count. That said perhaps the tastiest piece of chicken I’ve had in India can found in the 10’ x 7’ “Bee-Be-Que” street stand on Agra’s main drag. If you get lost just look for the place where they spell it “chichen.” A half order of tandoori chicHen will set you back 80r (less than $2.00) and have you returning the following day (as I did). The two best meals I’ve had in the last thirty-two days were both on the street (Agra and Chandigarh), both cost less than a one-way NYC subway ticket, and both set new benchmarks in my book for flavor. Mouth-watering food. I slept well that night.
The alarm went off at 5:45am the next morning and despite her reputation I did not shower for this date. I rode the bike through the quiet streets, found her western door, and at 6:45am found myself standing face to face with the world’s undisputed prettiest building.
Standing mesmerized before the awe-inspiring and breath-taking beauty of the Taj Mahal at dawn is an experience that must be lived. It’s one of those global icons that you can see a million times in print but never truly appreciate until you’re standing before it marveling humbly at its immense size, scale, and intricacy.
“The Taj Mahal was built by the Mughal Emperor Shan Jahan in commemoration of his favorite wife, the empress Mumtaz Mahal. Mumtaz died in 1631 at the birth of her 14th child. The grief-stricken emperor spared no effort in building the tomb in her memory, which is universally acknowledged as one of the most beautiful creations on Earth. After his death in 1666 Shan Jahan was buried in a tomb beside his beloved. Artisans were requisitioned from all over the empire and from central Asia and Iran. While bricks for the internal framework were locally made, white marble for the external surfaces was brought from Makrana in Rajasthan. The building was completed in 1648.”
Lifted directly from a stone tablet at the Taj’s entrance, I hope this satisfies your request Professor Rose: “Also, mix in a nugget or two of historical references b/c I like those…”
It was during my five hours wandering the Taj grounds that I found the color I was expecting in India.
Following a nap that afternoon I headed out for another take at sunset. A popular viewing point is the backside of the Taj as seen from the northern bank of the Yamuna River. The wild ride to this point took me over the river on a converted and comically congested railway bridge before passing through two little villages overflowing with scruffy haired, brightly dressed, smiling shoeless children laughing and playing in the streets.
When I located the river bank I found my spirituality in the strangest of places. After setting up my lens to shoot the changing sunset colors an unexpected visitor come over and stared me down. For what was no more than sixty seconds but felt like an hour I locked eyes with this individual. Neither of us moved and neither so much as blinked. We simply looked into each other in a completely non-threatening way. Not a word was exchanged. Now is when you can laugh, but I honestly felt I shared some indescribable connection with this man. It was like I was looking at myself but I clearly wasn’t. Clearly. It was something strangely special and after he moved on I couldn’t stop looking at him even though he hardly gave me another glance. It was a most brilliant and peculiar experience. I felt something happen there and I’m chalking it up as spirituality.
The day had been an incredible one and one of my best in India, so I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise when I found this on my ride home…blazing suns…
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