MAHAL

I was going to write about my time visiting the Taj Mahal but then I thought I would let the pictures tell the story. They speak for themselves:

This is the walk way that leads to the courtyard just outside the gate which leads to the garden in front of the Taj Mahal... I know...

The building in this picture is actually the gate that you pass through to enter the garden in front of the Taj Mahal. You can see by the size of the people that the Moguls did not play around when they built gates.

Here is a closer view of the main gate itself. Around the outside of the gate in a "square horseshoe" shape are some strange looking markings creating a sort of border around the entrance. They are quotes from the Koran, and look Arabic but they Urdu. I am told that even though the lines on this "border" look straight, they are actually wider at the top, creating an optical illussion for those standing underneath it. Making it wider at the top makes it look straight from bottom to top. The eleven domes across the top represent the eleven years it took to construct the main part of the Tomb. Symetry and Symbolism...

This is a close up of the walkway through the gate with the entrance to the Taj just beyond the gate. The flowers and vines that you see just above the entrance are cut stone that has been fitted perfectly into the white marble for decoration. I will show you a close up in a little bit.

This is the Taj Mahal as seen from inside the building that is the gate between the outer court and within the walls surrounding the garden in front of the Taj

My view of the Taj Mahal as I stood directly in front of it on the otherside of the gate. This is the garden. It does not look like what most of us think of when we think of a garden. There are trees and pools, and stone work-a-plenty. The designers were very careful to make everything symetrical.

I walked off to the side to get a view from a different angle. To the left you will see a building make with red stone, the same as the gate. That building is a mosque. It is used on Friday evenings for prayer and that is about it. I was there on a Saturday so there was no chance of seeing it in action. From this angle you can see how the Taj is built up on a platform. You may also notice that the towers at the four corners of the platform are leaning slightly.


Here is the front gate to the Taj Mahal. You will see the same Urdu lettering up and down the sides and along the top as on the gate. I am not sure what verse it is but it is from the Koran. The same ornate flowers and vines decorate the top part of the entrance. And the white Marble is what sets the whole thing apart from the rest of the structures around it.

Here is a close up of the lettering that looks Arabic but is actually Urdu.


This is hand carved out of the white granite wall in the entrance way into the Taj. This extremely detailed work is hundreds of years old.

Each of these shapes, the vine, the flowers, the gold hook looking things, are cut stone about two or three milimeters thick. Each one is individualy cut to fit into its spot in the wall. and a place is cut specifically for it as well. That is my tour guides finger in the lower left hand corner. If you were to blindfold someone and have them run there fingers acorss the surface, it would likely feel like on peice of granite that has not been touched with tools of any kind.

Pictures are not allowed inside the Taj so this next photo is from the other side of the Taj, the "back porch". This minerete looking tower is on the river side of the Taj as you can tell from the lower left side of the pic. These towers actually lean away from the main structure of the Taj so that if there were some kind of catastrophic event like an earthquake the towers would topple and crash away from the the building.

Inside the Taj Mahal lays the tombs of two individuals. Here is a brief synopsis. Shah Jahan was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire in the first half of the 1600's. It was a time of great prosperity. He took two other wives in the interveneing years but Mumtaz Mahal was always his favorite. They were married for ninteen years and she bore him 14 children. She died giving birth to the fourteenth child. As she was dying she asked Jahan to build a building in her memory.

And so out of love and devotion to her he began to assemble a team to build a magnificent building for his beloved wife to demonstrate and reflect his love for her. The buiding is called the Taj Mahal, you can see her name in the name of the building. The word Mahal means palace... That is what he built. Today her tomb is at rest beneath the floor of the Taj, but there is a replica tomb inside that you can see when you walk througth the building.

This is called the moonlight garden. Shah Jahan was going to build another mosoleum on the other side of the river. A black Taj Mahal for himself, but he never got to build it. He was arrested and thrown in to prison by his son who took over in a coup.

Off in the distance of this picture you can make out a complex that is called Agra Fort. It was in this for that Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son. He could look out his window and see the Taj that he had built, He could see the tomb of his beloved wife, but he could not be near her.

The next building that you are seeing here is a red stone building that serves no purpose other than to provide balance and symytry to the who Taj Mahal layout. The building on the other side is a functioning mosque but this one is simply for looks.

One last look at the Taj before I head out...

ALONE

In the week after everyone left Derhadun, I thought it would be great to have quiet around here. Just sitting and reading or writing in my journal or whatever. And have quiet was great for about an hour, after that it really started to feel lonely around the guest house. There was no on to talk to and no one to share stories with. There are a couple of American young ladies around but as music teachers they were often gone giving lessons or at the music professors house. Being alone is great but not for extended periods of time.

So to Adam, Sam, and Matt, my American companions in the guest house for four weeks, just know that your presence was missed around here. And I hope you made it back to your families okay.

GRAVEYARD

On Saturday we drove up and down… but mostly up these very windy roads through very steep mountains, which are actually the foothills of the Himalayas going as high as 10,000 feet here.

One of the many twisty and windy roads on our way into the mountains... ahem... foothills.

In some places the drop offs down the side of the road were at least 1,000 feet… and there are NO guardrails.

As I mentioned in my previous post “OFF” cows and monkeys were common sights, and in the little villages we would pass through men carrying heavy loads was also a common sight. The first place we stopped on our Saturday outing was a British graveyard.

This is a portion of the road we walked to get to the graveyard. They built spaces in the retaining wall for trees to continue to grow rather than cut them down. The root systems gives stability to the soil during the rainy season.

Land is precious in India. Hindu’s do not bury their dead because they believe it defiles the land. Instead they burn dead bodies or simply send them down the holy rivers. In order for the British to get a plot of land where it was okay for them to bury their dead it had to be land no one else wanted or land that was useful for little else. Hence this British Cemetery, which is actually in Landour (part of Musoorie) is on the side of a very steep mountain slope. Most of the soldiers who were buried here died of Malaria around the time of WWI; some, however, were from well before that time.

The picture to the right may give you a small idea as to the slope that we were on. The grave on he left is a more prominent one that was close to the wall and a little easier to get a picture of.

The gate was locked (see pics below) and apparently we were not supposed to be inside but the wall broken down around the side which gave us the opportunity to get a closer look. Dehra dun was a British hill station for many years until the independence in 1947. This brought a strong British cultural influence to the region; it is why we have tea time here at the college.

The stones that you see in these pictures were only about three feet long. Maybe the Brits were a lot shorter in those days, but I think that because of the degree of the slope they simply could not make full length coffins.

British soldiers and officers were stationed in Dehra dun and many officers had homes in the foothills towns like Musoorie where we went for our Saturday excursion. Musoorie started as a place where British soldiers would recover from war wounds and sicknesses but eventually it grew into a community and a popular vacation place for officers. There is also a military school here somewhere though we did not see it. That being said, when British soldiers died, the closest place where they could be buried was here.

A slightly different angle. It is eery to think that the person who was buried here was laid to rest so far from his homeland. He may have living relatives who have never visited his grave or even know that he is here. It was a quiet, beautiful, and lonely place.

This photo to me is a depiction of the Indian culture and the Cross. The culture is closed and and locked to anything outside of Indian culture...

...but the Cross is at work in ways that none of us can really understand. Jesus is already inside the gates. The gates of Hell can not prevail, nor can the gates of culture or politics.

These two pictures give a good illustration of the attitude towards Christianity here. Some are closed to the idea, others think anything is possible. What you focus on will determine what you see.

Just a Meandering Thought...


After the Graveyard we had lunch and then went to the FALLS (the last portion of our day off) which will be in the next post.

JUSTICE Part 1 of 2

Most of us would say that justice is a good thing; it is one of the values that make America, America. We want justice to be served. When we are wronged or a crime is committed what we want is justice. We want someone to be responsible for the wrongs, the injustices. Then we fight for justice. That is who we are as Americans.

When the towers fell on September 11th, 2001, the entire nation reeled at the massive injustice that had been brought to our soil. We grieved, we searched, we pulled away rubble, we sifted through ashes. Even if we did not personally know someone who died, we still somehow felt the gaping hole. In the days following we learned who was responsible and soon we were in the fight - for justice.

The last ten years will likely go down in the history books as a decade that America sought closure and justice. For the lives that were taken from us, we wanted justice; for the hearts that were broken for their loss, we wanted justice; for the nation that was attacked, we wanted justice; for the memories that were seared into our souls of two towers burning and collapsing, we wanted justice. On May 1st, 2011 justice was served with an American bullet (66 years to the day after Hitler died from his own bullet).

It has been said that justice is about giving a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. To the 2992 people who died in the attacks (minus the perpetrators) our voice on your behalf has been heard. We never forgot you. We all wanted justice for those who lost their lives. Yet if we were to receive justice ourselves for even the little things we have done we might think twice. Justice is a liberating event when you are the one wronged.

2000 years ago justice of a different kind was served with a cross and some nails. But you and I don't get justice, instead we get mercy. We don't get what we deserve, we get what He paid for. Because God never forgot or abandoned us. He hears the voice of those who call to him. I know this for sure, God is present in the places where injustice happens - to comfort those who have to walk that road. He sticks around to see that justice happens. Whether it is justice he accomplishes on our behalf, or just his presence in the stairwells of collapsing towers, God does not leave us but gives a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves.

Just a Meandering Thought...

Change

Taking a look outside today it is easy to see the change of the seasons. This really is my favorite time of year. The trees are gushing with color. It seems as if the colors drip off the trees and lie in puddles on the ground just beneath these fountains of golden hues. There is a slight nip in the air and at just the right time you can step outside and smell the smoke from the chimneys.

The ancient Celts believed that this was a magical time of year when the border between this world and the next was at its thinnest. They believed that at certain times and in certain places the two worlds would overlap. They believed it was possible to pass from this world to the next in these places of overlap. Our present day celebration of Halloween has its roots in this belief event hough the holiday is nothing of what it was in the prehistory of the British Isles.

So this time of year is filled with all kinds of magical changes. The leaves are brightening, the temperature is dropping, the sweaters are coming out, there is an occasional frost on the ground. This is the kind of change that I enjoy. However not all changes are so pleasant. In fact for most of us change is very unpleasant and sometimes even painful. It has been said that all change is loss. When something changes it is no longer the same (I know this is terribly obvious) but since it is no longer the same there is a part of us that mourns the loss of things as they were. We cannot go back. We cannot get it back. We have lost it.

Mourning the loss of things that change is an important process in coming to grips with the fact that things have changed. We sometimes watch a video from several years back, or click through pictures from a time gone by and we think of what it was like. We feel sad that those times have come and gone. In those moments we are experiencing a kind of mourning. Change has taken place and we feel a sense of loss.

Life is change. And so if we live long enough we will experience the loss of change and the need to mourn that change. The scripture reminds us that God does not shield us from experiencing these sometimes difficult times in our lives or the emotions that go with them. Intimacy with Jesus does not exempt or insulate us from the hurt of change even when it is not our choice. Intimacy with Christ tells us that no matter what the changes that come our way, no matter what the loss is that we feel; the veil between our world and His is never closed. He is as close as the mention of his name.

The Ancient Celts were close. They believed they had access to the "otherworld" twice a year, around the Spring and Autumn Equinox. What we know is that through Christ we have access to the "otherworld" by simply calling His name. Even though the pain of loss does not go away, somehow knowing that someone is there makes it a little more bearable.

Just a thought...