GOLDEN TRIANGLE OF INDIA November 3-9, 2011

WHEN LUCY FELL FROM THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS…

… it fell with a grand thud upon Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra – India’s so-called Golden Triangle.  

Delhi is white marble, red sandstone, jasper, towers, and palaces – a jewel box that is grandiose and dizzyingly rich.  In BIRLA TEMPLE, devotees offer namaz (prayers) and garlands of marigold to gods with multiple arms and lipsticked lips.  

BIRLA TEMPLE

The biggest mosque in India, JAMA MASJID, presides loftily from its rocky elevation.  An eternal flame guards the black marbled site of the GANDHI MEMORIAL. 

GANDHI MEMORIAL ETERNAL FLAME

The INDIA GATE proudly stands as a prominent landmark in red and pale sandstone and granite to soldiers of the Indian Army.

INDIAN FAMILY PICKNICKING AT INDIA GATE GROUNDS

KAMIKAZE RICKSHAW DRIVER

But Delhi is also an assault on the senses, as one navigates a rickshawed ride thru a crazed jumble of crumbling city walls and a labyrinth of tiny lanes – getting up close to hennaed goats, roasting naan bread and pakora frying in cauldrons of oil, hawkers of garish bangles by the armful, a colorful array of salwar (womens’ loose pants) and sari, elephant designs on most everything one can wear or drape or sit on – and all amid the non-stop honking of vehicles lined up bumper-to-bumper and jostled at intervals with pedestrians and cows crossing most anywhere and everywhere they could.

                                                                      D E L H I     V E N D O R S

Agra is the site of the ethereally luminescent, perfectly symmetrical, and magnificently proportioned TAJ MAHAL, every inch of its marbled grandeur covered with exquisite detailing, beautiful calligraphy and inlaid precious stones: agate, malachite, lapis lazuli, coral, carnelian, and turquoise, among others.  It is said to be a testament to Shah Jahan’s eternal love to his wife; and who can dispute that?  It took only 22 years of work by some 20,000 laborers to complete the edifice. The wait to view the tombs of these now-immortalized lovers can last for almost an hour, as one circles endless mosques and outer courts.

TAJ MAHAL

RELAXING AT THE TAJ

QUEUE AT THE TAJ

 

















But sharply contrasting with Agra’s splendid sight is the sweat and dust of roaming humanity, broken balustrades and once-ornate facades defaced with rusted signs, piles of garbage, mud-crusted cows lazily shooing off ubiquitous flies with the slow rhythm of swaying tails.  One can close one’s eyes for a moment, but the claustrophobic feeling never goes away.

Clad in terracotta-colored plaster and therefore earning the nomenclature as the “Pink City," Jaipur  stands as a testament to the grandeur of Akbar the Great’ s empire.  Palaces in Fatehpur Sikri are a reminder of the extravagance of the Mughals.  Bulund Darwaza is an architectural wonder consisting of kiosks and domes, turrets and arches, and decorative red sandstone panels.  

Panch Mahal, a five-story summer palace for Akbar’s three wives and ladies of the court, is an edifice straight out of a fantasy book.   













 


Shaik Salim Chisti’s Tomb, a square marble slab inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ornamented with geometric mosaics made of black and yellow marble and peacock carvings, elaborate arabesque patterns and Quranic inscriptions is elegant and splendid beyond belief.

Looking like part a maharajah’s caravanserai, thrilled visitors garbed in a kaleidoscope of flamboyant red head pieces and mirrored parasols ride ornately-clad elephants to Amber Fort, all built in white marble and red sandstone.  Stunningly carved in delicate artistry are its temples, halls, royal apartments, halls, and pavilions.  

WOBBLY PERCH ON ELEPHANT'S BACK

Turns along the way bring the delightful surprise of a coral-saried woman sweeping the craggy street with a twig broom, a nonchalant snake charmer coaching his hesitant ward from out its basket, or even a family of monkeys traipsing on rooftops and city walls.  It is the pure magic of Kublai Khan, Xanadu, and Ali Baba all rolled into one.  In the Rajasthan Textile market, the pure colors of its famous block-printed textile, the attractive designs of patterned bandani, crackled batik, and embroidered fabric boggle the mind. In restaurants, the eternal dahl (lentil stew), tandoori chicken, mint and tamarind chutney, gulab jamon (sweet balls made from saffron-scented chick pea flour), basmati rice yellowed with turmeric, and curried mutton – among others – are like the opium that  heighten the frenzied movements of swirling dance entertainers, some of them balancing a stack of pots flamed on the top.

RAJASTHANI FOLK DANCER

Yet, in all these, there is the  putrid elephant dung, general chaos, pushy traders, a pathetic gaudiness that is passed perhaps for affluence, and always, shoving humanity most of whom have yet to learn the courtesy of an orderly queue.

Lucy could fall off the sky with diamonds on any other part of the world, but it is a sure bet that it would burst the brightest, in its utmost psychedelic best, in a psychotic part of the world called India’s Golden Triangle.