I had a chance to spend one day at Agra and I jumped at the thought of visiting one of the 7 wonders of the world! I reached Agra Cantonment at around 10am. Straight away I headed to the Pre-paid rickshaws booth outside the railway station. It is manned by a police man so no worries. I choose the option of 4 hours rickshaw and 3 places to visit… The Taj, Agra fort and market. It was about Rs. 200 which I felt is very good deal.
Our Rick headed directly to the Taj Mahal. On reaching at the entrance gate and buying the entrance ticket (~ Rs.25/- for Indian nationals) we were surrounded by many guides. Finally we decided to hire one for 100 bucks. Later we came to conclusion that it was worth having a guide.
Our guide showed us multiple optical illusions and provided a lot of interesting information about Taj. I would love to share them with you :)
As soon as you enter the main gate you will get the first glimpse of Taj. I was overwhelmed by it, to say the least. In this entrance dome, stand at the centre, I think there is some kind of mark there. From this point look at Taj and move towards it, as you move the Taj seems to grow in size and as you move back to original position it shrinks back. This is the first illusion that our guide showed us! Check out the photo below.
Taj was designed as per the description of heaven in holy Koran. Made of various rare kinds of marbles and precious stones it must have been one of the greatest monument of its time. It is symmetric in every aspect, from all sides it is exactly same.
It has 16 gardens 8 on each side, 53 fountains.. our guide told us that it indicates the year of Taj’s construction – 1653 (16 gardens and 53 fountains). On the entrance door there are 22 smaller domes signifying 22 years that took to build this enormous monument.
Each door has inscription of holy words from Koran. These words are not painted but carved in white marble and then exactly same shaped black marble is fitted in it. As a matter of fact this is true for all designs. The size of the words increases gradually from bottom to the top in such a way that it appears to be same sized from below and hence easy to read. Another example of well thought craftsmanship and optical illusion!
From the back side of Taj one can see the flowing Yamuna river. We were informed that emperor Shahajahan had marked a site right across the river to build exactly the same Taj mahal but with black marble! I cannot imagine the magnitude of wonder it would have been if these twin Taj were in existence today. You can see the site marked even today (pic above)
Our guide helped us in clicking this excellent reflection of Taj.
When to visit
September - March
What to shop
Petha – a sweet made up of White Pumpkin or Ash Gourd. (Panchhi (bird in hindi) Petha is apparently famous in Agra). You can find many flavours, must try.
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