Agra

When my alarm went off early Thursday morning, I didn't feel like doing much of anything, let alone driving the four hours to and from Agra. Kyle had been battling a cold earlier in the week, and it finally caught up with me Wednesday afternoon. But I'd made a plan, and despite a lack of quality sleep and general wooziness I walked outside at 7:30 to meet Rakesh, his eldest son Divyansh, and Harpal Singh, our driver for the day. I told Rakesh I'd been up with a small cold (chota zukaam) but he didn't seem too concerned. I masked up and hopped into the taxi. South Delhi is pleasantly quiet at 7:30 on a Thursday, and we made it out of the city and onto the Yamuna Expressway, a six-lane toll road built to cut down on Delhi-Agra traffic, in no time. Traffic remained thin for the entire 165 kilometers to Agra.

Diyvansh and I sat in the back, breaking in and out of Hindi and English in sporadic conversation about school, music, sports, etc. Rakesh, up front in the passenger seat, tuned in and out, chatting occasionally with Harpal. Divyansh is twelve and currently learning English and Sanskrit in addition to his native Hindi. From what I understand, the family also speaks some Punjabi--Rakesh's mother tongue--in the home. Needless to say, the kid is not a dud. But private schools are brutally competitive in India, even at that age, and one of the reasons Rakesh wanted to bring Diyansh along, apart from giving him a day off amidst online exams, was so he could practice his English with me. Much to Diyvansh's amusement, however, I am always looking for opportunities to practice my Hindi. So we moved freely between the two.

This is how it usually goes with Rakesh when I'm cruising around Delhi in the back of his rickshaw. Sometimes we'll speak exclusively in Hindi, sometimes English, but our default mode of communication is a hybrid in which I speak Hindi to him and he speaks English to me. This gives us each the opportunity to practice a second language with maximal conversational flow and minimal confusion. If he can understand my Hindi and respond coherently, then I know I'm doing ok, regardless of minor grammatical mistakes or occasional broken phrases. Conversational fluency with native speakers is by far the most difficult aspect of language learning, and my rides with Rakesh provide training wheels of a sort. In addition to his all-around good nature, it was these relaxed, low-stakes practice sessions that won me over--first as a return customer, then as a friend. 

But on this day, there was no rickshaw. Rakesh, who had organized the trip, was just along for the ride. As conversations sputtered around the half-way point, we listened to a little Punjabi music and Divyansh and I played a game of speed chess on our phones. He beat me on time--only slightly less humiliating than if he'd checkmated me, which for a moment seemed imminent. I started sweating when he took my queen, but managed to return the favor several minutes later. Even so, he rattled me good and I played slowly after that. It gave him the edge, and his 10-minute timer had 1:04 remaining as mine expired.

We pulled into Agra after 11 am and stopped to pick up Sumit, our guide for the Taj Mahal. All ticket purchases at the Taj are now contactless, and Sumit helped us navigate the online ticketing system as we approached the entrance gate. On the walk into the Taj complex, Sumit and I got to chatting, and he was thrilled when I requested the tour in Hindi rather than English. A combination of deliberate pacing, clear annunciation, and word choice made his speaking easy for me to track, and I stayed engaged throughout the tour, asking questions and stopping to clarify unfamiliar words and phrases when necessary. The whole experience with Sumit felt empowering--the antithesis of those social encounters that occasionally leave me wondering if I actually know Hindi at all--and he was clearly moved by my engagement, interest, and linguistic persistence. Whether or not it was warranted, he complimented my pronunciation and basic command of the language. Chatting with him, and listening to his spiel, my skills felt as relaxed and fluid as they had at any point since arriving in India three weeks earlier.

As for the Taj Mahal, what's there to say that isn't a cliche? Pictures don't do it justice, that's for sure. I could see being put off by the Agra tourist scene--particularly on busier, hotter summer days--but the Taj itself is miraculous. I'm a sucker for Mughal architecture, of which North India has plenty, but it should come as no surprise that the Taj Mahal is the most impressive single specimen I've encountered. Crafted entirely of white marble from nearby Makrana, Rajasthan, the main mausoleum (makabaara) is adorned with ornate inlays of semi-precious stones from around the world, both inside and out. I don't have time or energy to recount the elaborate love story of Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, and Mumtaz Mahal, his second wife and chief consort, who together birthed 14 children. Suffice it to say, when Mumtaz died birthing their 14th child, Gauhar Ara Begum, in 1631, Shah Jahan commissioned the Taj Mahal to hold the remains of his favorite wife. With construction completed in 1653, Shah Jahan was laid to rest next to Mumtaz when he passed in 1658. Pretty darn romantic, even if the idea of holding multiple wives (not to mention concubines) and a massive building project that required hundreds of thousands of man-hours of forced labor cloud the fairy tale.

If pictures of the Taj Mahal were currency, I'd be set for life now. Sumit knew exactly where to stand for all the best angles and had very particular ideas about which poses we should assume at which spots. He wouldn't take no for an answer. If anyone wants more glam shots, or pictures of me standing on a bench picking up the Taj Mahal by its spire, just let me know. They didn't make the cut.

Upon leaving the Taj, we visited a reputable marble crafts store Rakesh knew from a visit to Agra five years earlier. There are apparently a number of imposters near the Taj Mahal that will rip you off selling fake marble, but I was assured these guys were the real deal. I had no desire to shop, and spent over thirty minutes trying to convince the salesman I really did think the craftsmanship was impressive but I really didn't have the money, need, or luggage space to justify purchasing an ornate white marble table top or chess set. "No problem, we ship everywhere." In the end I settled for a small Ganesh murti with semi-precious stones inlaid in the style of the Taj Mahal. I had been on the lookout for a Ganesh anyway, and this one felt right for the bedroom in Hauz Khas, where it now stands on a shelf above my left shoulder when I practice tabla.

Then on to lunch with Rakesh and Divyansh, where I crushed a massive Punjabi veg thali, and a sweet shop famous for a type of pumpkin-based sweet called petha, which I had never even heard of. Naturally, I bought the large sampler pack for 320 rupees (about $4.20) and some masala peanuts to take home as snacks. Then we started the trip back, stopping for chai around the two-hour mark, and eventually trading the relative calm of the Yamuna Expressway for the cacophony of Delhi rush hour. By the time I returned to the apartment it had been a twelve-hour day. In my state of fatigue, the cold symptoms resurfaced. One of the symptoms, unfortunately, was difficulty sleeping for a second consecutive night.

Now I'm fine. Finishing up dissertation-year fellowship applications for UCSC this weekend and still waiting on my FRRO registration, which as of tomorrow will have taken longer than the maximum expected turnaround time of two weeks. So that's a little frustrating, but there's nothing I can do I haven't already done. Kyle is off to Rajasthan for a couple weeks on Monday, and then it'll just be me here. We finally have Hindi TV channels up and running, to complement our recently acquired high-speed internet, so at least there's that. More next week regarding research plans and prospects. For now, time to brew up afternoon chai and then maybe off to Westside to find warm-weather shirts to match my two pairs of freshly tailored linen pants.