November 21, 2004

We were on our way to the Taj Mahal. The suburbs of New Delhi stretched on and on and it took us almost one hour to manoeuvre through them. We stopped at a roadside stall to quench our thirst, as the day was rather hot. A nondescript town sprawled around us aimlessly. “What is the name of this town?” I asked the driver.

“Mathra,” he said without any enthusiasm.

“Mathra?” I exclaimed excitedly. “Mathra of Pairas and Pandas,” I exclaimed as I gave a hearty slap on the shoulders of yawning Asghar Nadeem Syed. “Shahji do you know there are lot of Pandas in Mathra?”

Shahji was rather lethargic due to a last night binge, twirled his graying moustaches and looked at me as I had gone senile.

“Chaudhry Sahib are you out of your mind? Pandas are only found in China.”

“I tell you pandas are around here somewhere, big fat bulging pandas gorging enormous quantities of sweet Pairas.”

“And I tell you Pandas only eat bamboo shoots.”

“Well these pandas of Mathra eat sweets, I know.”

During the long winter nights we would gather around our Abbaji and he would narrate strange stories of his travels in India before partition, the Bankas of Lucknow, Chinioti Sheikhs of Calcutta, elephants of Sylhet, tigers of Sunderbans but our favourite was Pandas of Mathra and it went on something like this”

“There is this holy town of Mathra near Delhi littered with temples. Devout Hindus will go there to get rid of their sins. There they will hire a panda, a sumo wrestler type holy man or pandit and will squat in front of him with a tray loaded with the famous Mathra Pairas. The panda will open his large mouth and the devotee will start feeding him. It was their firm belief that according to the numbers of pairas devoured by the panda their sins in equal number would be wiped out. A time would come when the panda was fully loaded with the famous sweet almost bursting from the seams, his mouth stuffed and he would refuse to eat anymore and this was the crucial point. The devotee would beg him to eat just a few more pairas and will offer him a lot of money in return. The panda very much tempted would agree and the devotee would force a few more pairas in his mouth until the poor panda, sweets oozing out of his nostrils and ears, would collapse, but not before collecting his fortune from the devotee.”

Prior to my departure for Agra I had made enquiries about the ‘Pandas of Mathra’ and was told that the number has dwindled and if I probe around in Mathra I might find a Panda or two. But we did not have the time to probe; it was either Taj Mahal or a panda. So I left Mathra with a heavy heart. Would I feed a panda to get rid of my sins? No, because just one panda won’t do, the number of my sins is such that at least a dozen pandas would have to be engaged for the job.

On our left, a road branched off for Aligarh, the city of the famed Muslim University some thirty kilometres away. Two magnificent Gurudawaras emerged from the green landscape built entirely with white marble, perhaps an indication that Taj Mahal was not far off. Upon entering the great Mughal city of Agra we saw on our left the river Jumana, not much of a river at this time of the year but there was enough water for the numerous buffaloes that rested their black bulks in it. An iron bridge again packed with buffaloes and cows hung over the holy Jumana.

In Agra you do not have to ask where the Taj Mahal, you just follow the numerous buses, tourist wagons and coaches and you are there. But when we were there, there was no Taj Mahal, just a huge parking lot as it is forbidden for any vehicle to go beyond this point to protect the Taj from petrol or diesel fumes. From the parking lot either you walk, which is not recommended because it is at least a kilometre away and the heat on that day was unbearable. Or you hire a good old tonga, a cycle rickshaw or a battery run vehicle, all of them pollution free. We opted for a rickety tonga and were amused to hear the tongawala coaxing his skinny horse in pure U.P. Urdu, “Abay chalta hai ya doon jhanpar, mian chal do” etc. I forgot to mention the hordes of young tourist guides who storm every tourist, pleading, almost begging to be hired, nearly abducting the harassed tourists. One of them forcibly entered our tonga and we had to push him away!

The entrance much to our dismay was packed with humanity, school children, scantily clad skinny woman, families, tourists and naturally Sikhs. Perhaps it was because it was a Sunday. There were endless queues all over. The entry ticket was 20 Indian rupees for the locals and a mere $20/- for the foreigners. But then, who said we were foreigners? Shahji was the spitting image of a Mahant gone astray amongst the Devdasis and my features resembled the high priest of Kali Mata’s temple. So we were locals for once and bought 20 rupee tickets without any remorse. Another endless queue underneath the burning sun, the ticket checker and then the short tempered security man who rummaged through my shoulder bag and shouted, “No cigarettes, no lighters allowed inside, deposit in the luggage room outside.”

“I will just throw them here if you please.”

“No littering, get out,” and he pushed me so hard that I crashed on at least three innocent sightseers who abused me profusely. Thank God I did not understand their language. I was not used to being pushed around, except by my wife and I felt humiliated but not enough to abandon my visit to Taj. So I rushed out, threw the objectionable items under a bush and came back and the security man let me pass.

“I am grateful sir,” I said humbly.

“You should be grateful and you know why?” he thundered.

Initially I failed to understand his retort but then it dawned upon me that while rummaging through my bag he had noticed my green passport and the Pakistani brand of cigarettes realizing that I was not a local but a bloody foreigner who was skipping through with a twenty-rupee ticket; indeed I had to be grateful.

All this excitement and the heat was affecting me and I had a feeling that I may collapse the very next moment due to dehydration. Those who knew that there was no water available inside the premises had brought their personal water bottles and I was waterless so to speak. I requested the Almighty to please delay that collapse till my first glimpse of the Taj Mahal. The inner compound was teeming with tourists, guides and dozens of photographers and the whole lot was heading towards a huge and impressive red stone gate; the entrance to the Taj and we were a part of this enthusiastic crowd.

A very high arch came into view and it was totally filled with a mass of dazzling light, the pure glistening whiteness was unbearable. And then the whole of Taj Mahal, recently descended from the heavens, was placed before us. I felt as though the pure and dazzling whiteness flowed into my eyes, filling my whole body and turning it into marble. Now I was seeing the marble miracle with marble eyes. Do I exaggerate? No sir. I do not even posses the vocabulary even to do justice to narrate it very ordinarily.

I had come with total reservations, ready to condemn the Taj at the slightest pretext, I was sick of its stories of splendour, and beauty, the most beautiful structure on earth and all that sentimental hotchpotch, wonder of the world indeed. But its first sight bowled me over; it razed my body structure, brick by brick and then rebuilt it with dazzling marble that is why I was looking at it with marble eyes. Seeing it was not believing because it was not real.

“Shahji, we have been hoodwinked, it’s a fake, a model, a film set, its not the real thing.” Shahji looked aghast, thinking that the dehydration was having its effect. “Because real things are built by human hands, always, somewhere in the construction, design or symmetry the human touch is there, a slight flaw which makes it real. I am afraid it will presently disappear right in front of our eyes. If at all it is created by human hands it surpasses all that the creations created and if a human after creating it declares that “Anaulhuq I am the truth, I am God” then can you blame him?”

The Taj Mahal, a tear on the cheek of eternity? Rather poetic I agree but a total misrepresentation because there isn’t a speck of sorrow or gloom or tragedy for that matter in its visual, on the contrary it is a celebration of life, a breath of eternal happiness, justification of human existence and a reason to live on.

It is chiselled from the virgin snows of Shah Gori the K2 and entices you to a kiss before dying.

A huge bird, grey and red in complexion rose from the depths of Jumana, prominent against the simmering blue sky, came down and lazily flew in front of the Taj, the bird lost its colours and turning white, became a part of Taj so much so that despite my constant gaze I could not spot him anywhere and finally when he flew out of its range of white dazzle it regained its colours. I remembered a famous line of Punjabi poet Hafiz Barkhurdar.

“Last night the moonlight was so white that when a crow flew into it, its blackness turned in to a tuft of pure cotton.”

So this was Taj Mahal, I am sure if any crows lived by, they will be of dazzling white colour.

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