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A true portrait of the Taj
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In a new book on the Taj author Royina Grewal gives rare glimpses of the famous city interspersed with interesting anecdotes, says R.V. SMITH
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The Taj Mahal casts a shadow long enough to cover Delhi too which, next to Agra, basks in its glory or Royina Grewal would not have left her posh apartment in R.K. Puram to camp for days in the city of the Taj, not once but several times. The result is an engrossing Penguin book, “In the Shadow of Taj: A Portrait of Agra”, in which Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb flourished after their ancestor Babar.
Royina seems to have fallen in love with the city of the Moghuls and captured every nuance in her impeccable style. The author of ‘Sacred Virgin’ and the ‘Book of Ganesha’, she is not entirely put off by the decadence of Agra, but sees vestiges of its greatness even in the despoliation brought about by the centuries. Says Royina, “I went to Agra without any knowledge abut the city, beyond the Taj. Everything I have said in this book I have learnt from the people in Agra during the three years it took to research this book.”Beginning with Aram Bagh, the garden of leisure, high above the Yamuna, which was laid out by Babar and co-named Gulafashan or flower-scattering garden, Royina has touched on most monuments in the city.
Historical evidence
But Agra’s origins go back to the dim past, to the time of Lord Krishna. Even historical evidence would have us believe that the city existed 2500 years ago. Ochre coloured potsherds found at several sites have been dated to at least 1800 BC. In AD 200 the Greek geographer Ptolemy marked it on the map of the world. The city, devastated by an earthquake in 1505, got its name from a comment by Sikandar Lodhi to his vazir that he would found a new capital on the far side of Yamuna (Agre Ra), though some historians say his actual word were “Agar” – that which is ahead. However this is to open to controversy as the place was referred to as Agravan as early as the Mahabharata days.
Photo: R.V.MOORTHY
Book lore “In the Shadow of Taj: A Portrait of Agra” by Royina Grewal captures Agra’s nuances
Royina’s treatise covers not only every aspect of the Taj but also the socio-economic fabric of the city : Hindu-Muslim relations based on both bonhomie and occasional conflicts that erupted in communal riots, the leather calligraphy, stone-cutting, pietra dura and shoe industries and the iron foundries blamed for polluting the Taj. About the Taj there are many interesting anecdotes. How the British first despoiled it and even allowed their officials to live in the monument, some of them occupying the minarets too, Lord William Bentinck’s foolhardy plan to sell the Taj marble by demolishing the monument and Lord Curzon’s great efforts to restore it to its pristine glory. There is also the story of the American pilot who nearly crashed his over-fuelled plane into the monument during World War II in the 1940s.
Royina is very factual and gives such glimpses of Agra as the old nobility, portrayed by the Nawab of Sadabad and the seths, the pigeon-fanciers and the ladies’ mushaira.
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
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