The immensities of the past often fall like water upon our shoulders. The burden too heavy for us to carry and so while some things soak into you skin and memory, others form forgotten puddles on the meandering roads of history. They lie there, a dip of stories that more often than not no one reads. But what about those droplets of history that stick to our skin? They wash over generation after generation until they stand as monuments that have withstood the attack of time as it ran by over and over and over again. Agra is one of those cities, that has withstood. It houses some of the greatest buildings from medieval Indian history, the most popular one being the Taj Mahal.

People flock to the Taj every year to go see the stunning white marble mausoleum where Shah Jahan’s late Queen, Mumtaz Mahal’s cabr is housed. Every building within the 17 acres of the Taj Mahal Complex has some purpose. Some story to tell, but our focus remains on the great marble mausoleum that looms overhead in blinding brightness. It stands out against vibrant blue skies, the pastels of dusk and dawn and even in the fog and rain, it seems to have donned a veil of clouds. This is Shah Jahan’s ode to his wife. His beloved. And the Taj is an ode to Agra. It is the greatest love song that an Emperor has written for his Empress, a husband for his wife, an aashiq for his lover ~

“I counted the stars till the dawn fell upon Agra. It was a cloudy day. The winter drizzle had brought black clouds with it, the pink sky merging into a dull grey. But this was not a day to stay away from the city, despite the bone deep desire for hot coffee, crocheted blankets and books. This was a day for the story of the city. A love story. A tragedy. All tied in together.

As I walk through the city, on the dusty road that leads up to the Taj Mahal Complex, there is a chill in the air. Throngs of people have arrived despite the chill and the dampness. Photographers offer their services to the foreigners, hoping to make cash on the practiced photos they take with the best angles, the great monument standing behind them in grand splendour. It’s an arrogant story, a story that everyone goes to read, to witness, to take pictures of. It tells the tale of the Emperor of the Subcontinent who spent millions of rupees to build his wife a tomb, so she might be encased in something beautiful. It’s the story I read in history books in middle school. I walk on, until the green grounds stretch in front of me, the grass starting to brown as the winter chill seeps into the mud.

A large carmine darwaza appears ahead. This is the darwaza-i-rauza, It’s many domes looking like strange birds with their sharp beaks pointed towards the sky. The white a stark contrast to the sandy red. It shrouds what is to come, the red a misleading ruse. Red sandstone is a habit in these stories, I can’t help but think, why would this be any different? But it is. The air of mystery that wafts off it complete with the darkness of the clouds. The exact vocabulary used to describe the architecture is confusing and filled with large words. The white marble inlay on the darwaza is encrusted with precious stones in verses of the Koran. The same marble used for the Taj lying beyond the Great Darwaza.

There is something so enchanting about darwaza’s. All of them on the Taj Complex promise some new secret. They lie in half open arches, each leading from place to place, some covered in intricate jaali, others encrusted with precious gems. Which will lead to which. It seems like a map of promises. Doorways upon doorways of secrets. Some whisper of sunlight just beyond, others are cloaked in shadows, each leading to a new part of the story. I notice it as I walk through the complex.

But the true stories do lie in the white marble mausoleum that is the Taj. Not in the large facade. But in the smaller elements. I see the lover in the the engravings all over the wall. He wants his beloved to walk through the valley of death surrounded by flowers. She will walk in the white of death surrounded by the blooming flowers inlaid like fresh blood, the color enveloping the sobriety. He has the mazdoors engrave delicate lotus flowers for her to set sail on heavenly rivers, pomegranates so she may remember the ripeness of their love, ginger for her to brew in her tea. He has the Amanat Khan inscribed in calligraphy at the entrance so she may stay within the canopy of his God’s blessing. He engraves love letters in these symbols across the monuments. He instructs the mazdoors to make sure that there is darkness in the center of the tomb but yet small spaces of light for his beloved so she may still feel the warmth of the sun. These are epistolary remains of his love and his grief inscribed in color and secret messages of fertility and blessings and the spaces in between their love, that was filled with small nothings. I see a lover coming to spend time with his beloved in those sacred dark spaces allowing his cheeks to be warmed by the sun as though he is sitting across the glow of her healthy skin.

Across the way on the large white expanse upon which I stand lies the empty space across the banks of the blackening Yamuna. The heavy air of regret drapes the air. A King wishing to look upon his Queen even in death, in the depths of a second onyx Taj. But it lies empty still. The river barely laps at the banks, the only blackening thing as it dies from all the rubbish it has been choked with. A maelstrom of feelings are evoked by the entire expanse as you look at it from the mouth of the cabr.

I see the mysteries that shroud it, the horror of the mazdoors who built it, the grand story of an emperor honoring his queen, regrets that swirl through the wind and above all a lover who wished only beautiful things for the woman he loved. This is the Agra, one should see, despite the cliches and the throngs of tourist hoping for nothing more but a single snap and check on their Indian travel bucket list.

The stories the Taj tells is it’s ode to Agra, and this is mine to it.