Day 138, Fatehpur Sikri, Sikandra [Friday 18th April 2008]
Previous day: Day 137, Agra, Taj Mahal, Agra Fort [Thursday 17th april 2008]
Next day: Day 139, Jaipur [Saturday 19th April 2008]
We get the bus to Fatehpur Sikri. The bus is falling to bits. All the buses in India are. When they're particularly overfull — and they are always full — they lurch lopsided down the roads. Every day the papers have a story about another bus full of people dying when it fell off a bridge, or tumbled down a hill, or drove into another bus. When we get to Fatehpur Sikri we have breakfast at Ajay's — the best aloo parathas we've ever had, plus great homemade lemon pickle and gorgeous fresh mango juice.
Through a bustling market and some fly infested alleys we make our way up to the Victory Gate. It was constructed by Akbar after winning a battle somewhere. At the top of a flight of steps, it towers over the landscape, looking out at the flat plains to the horizon all around. We pass through the gate, and find a mosque and several shrines of saints. There are also dozens of irritating touts, talking in slimy Americanized English and attempting to exploit any cultural or religious naivete we may have — do we wear shoe, or go barefoot? head covered or uncovered? are women allowed inside the shrine or not? It's infuriating and insidious, but also sad — it's the worst treatment we've had at any religious site in India.
The old abandoned capital of Fatehpur Sikri is surprisingly intact, in fact almost clinically so. But it is not a ghost town — under the baking sun, so still and quiet, it is hard to imagine even ghosts living here. It is so hard to conjure life into these buildings, separated by flat concrete paving and surrounded by neat, clipped grass lawns. We get in free, which is a bonus — it's the Archeological Survey of India's annual 'get in free' day!
Some of the buildings are beautiful, but the purpose of many remains ambiguous. There is a very small room, standing alone, which is covered inside and out in intricately carved stone. Elsewhere is another room, isolated within a deep pool of water and accessible via 4 bridges emanating from the structure and spanning the pool. Impressive, but it also seems whimsical and extravagant. How much of the doomed capital city remains? How much are we looking at right now.
We both look forward to reading Salman Rushdie's latest book, The Enchantress of Florence, which is partly set here. If anyone can, Rushdie will be able to breathe life into this place.
The bus back to Agra takes hours. One you have left behind the gloss and efficiency of the Taj Mahal complex it's very much business as usual around here. From the bus stand we get a rickshaw to Akbar's mausoleum, which he built for himself in preparation for his death. It's a magnificent, sprawling tomb set within a deer park and surrounded by four huge gates. It's powerful and dramatic, and certainly seems fitting for the man they called Akbar the Great.
We wander around the tomb as the sun slowly sets, the deer nibbling the grass and Indian tourists picnicking on the lawns. Tombs of some of Akbar's wives are set around the edges of the mausoleum, which must cover a couple of acres in size. Deep inside in the cool, dark centre is Akbar's tomb, a large room with a high ceiling containing a solitary coffin shaped stone. A man comes in and hollers, clapping loudly, 'demonstrating' the echo from the high stone ceiling, as if it were the significant feature we had come for. As if it wasn't the tomb of one of India's greatest emperors. Idiot.
We spend the evening in a public garden near our hotel. It's raised up on a hill, and has a good view of the Taj as the sun sets.
Next day: Day 139, Jaipur [Saturday 19th April 2008]
Previous day: Day 137, Agra, Taj Mahal, Agra Fort [Thursday 17th april 2008]