Are you kidding me ?? Go half way around the world and be within range of one of the 7 wonders of the world and not go see it ?? The Taj Mahal !! Gotta go !! …
My second day in India, I was at the train station at 5am.
Things proceeded to quickly get progressively weird-er .... and weird-er ….
....... And. Weird-er by the moment....
The train platform had rows and rows of bodies covered
with white sheets laying flat on the cement. (...Whhaaat the - - ? )
Claustrophobia reign thick with flys smells & peoples.
A 4-hr ride face to face with non-stop giggling techie Chinese hipsters.
Congested cloth dwelling camps outside Delhi. ouch Harsh.
Rural Jaipur City the hordes packed in tight. None touristos here.
I put my camera away.
The stares were not friendly.
The barbers cut hair in sidewalk stalls.
The people defecated in sidewalk stalls.
Goats hung out on every ledge.
Children begging insistently.
The cold hard stares.
The stifling dry heat.
Reprimanded at a temple, I was yelled at.
The crowd thought me hilarious.
How to properly do the water bowl custom ?
Group of boys jeering sneering taunting, followed me from behind.
I knew what they were saying even without speaking their tongue.
Group of young girls said hi, when I said hi back, it set off peels of laughter.
The cold hard brow furling frowning stares.
Men peeing on the path right in front of me.
Got in the hotel front door by pulling it open as the doorman
stood there with his hand on the knob looking in the other direction ...
Somebody standing outside my hotel room door clearing their throat all night long …
I was not ready for any of this.
Gut-wrenching and feeling sick from culture shock.
I wanted out. I wanted safety.
I felt scared, threatened and hated by everyone that saw me.
I wanted to become invisible.
The goal : see the Taj Mahal.
Yet, still. Another leg in the journey to travel, yet....
I had to stop & reassess the situation. Hit the brake pedal. Screech.
I felt confined trapped paranoid & overwhelmed.
I had been ready to throw in the towel & turn around, shook-en-ed up to the core
and completely spooked & freaked from the very get-go
when I viewed all those bodies on the train platform.
Not ready for That.
This side trip had suddenly turned into a waking nightmare
I was buckling coming apart at my unprepared-for seams.
I knew my limits.
I could not think. I could not write. I could not Be. It was hard to breathe.
All I could do was sit, stunned, dazed, and felt afraid inside.
Not ready to give up. Or call it quits : determined.
I called a travel agency and asked what are the different means of transport
from Jaipur to Agra ( home of the Taj ). One of the options was to hire a car and driver.
I opted for that.
It would give me space and peace and quiet which I needed badly.
I needed a time-out to be alone and separate myself from the sarongs and throngs.
Collect myself. And my thoughts … catch my breath. And Breathe.
In that silent 4 hour drive to Agra, I thought long and hard
about what I had just experienced as a fellow human being.
Derided, ridiculed, demeaned, scorned, mocked, and the butt of joking.
And hated.
Hated for what I represented.
I was the circus clown. I was the monkey swinging in the cage.
I was the ugly American. I was prejudice, discrimination, chauvinism, bigotry, intolerance, sexism, racism, classism, and ism dis ism dat, ism ism ism, all of them isms.
I was different. I was a preconceived idea. A preconceived notion.
I was being seen through a filter of nationality, ethnics, citizenship, clan and race.
I was unwanted, not welcomed, unacceptable, rejected and despised. Dehumanized.
Not being seen as me, only an unfair idea that overrode or cancelled my total me-ness human being-ness who I was-ness away.
I was a member of another tribe.
I felt sad. I felt hurt. I felt pain. I felt compassion.
I reflected upon humanity. Why Why Why ??
We all the same. We one. We won together. We all together in this.
"I am he. As you are he. As you are me. And we are all together."
I had told the driver, “I feel hated for what I represent.”
He said, “Don’t worry, be happy.”
That evening’s sunset arrival as I walk on foot to enter the Taj Mahal had finally come.
Only the very pointy tippy tops of minarets could be viewed beforehand, as they peaked over the high walls of the massive hidden chamber which surrounded the temple. The stone arched entrance gate to the Taj Mahal was 93 feet tall. It had two doors on ground level that opened up as one walks through them.
My breath was taken away.
Stunned.
Silent.
Transfixed.
My eyes enchanted captivated wide open taking in the view.
I believe my mouth was wide open, too, in disbelief.
My heart opened up by the sensation of the wonder to behold.
The all white glossy polished marble temple thee Taj Mahal stood in the far far far away distant distance. It stood away almost the same amount of distance as the height of the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State building, or 102 stories tall away. I think that was one reason it was a wonder. The distance away it is, from when you first view it. And the space between The Taj Mahal and you, the viewer, is filled with long narrow reflecting pools which reflect the temple. And on each side of the pools are meticulously immaculately groomed landscaped gardens. The only vision that comes close for comparison in my world is the scene in The Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy & Co. steps up to the long path that leads to the city of Oz, which is way way off in the far away distance. Miles and miles away with gardens, turned eventually into poppies, on each side of the path …
Walking up to the Taj Mahal one senses the structure as alive. Emitting light like a white sun a white orb a white Being. The dome, a head. The arches organic. The surface covered in jewels : lapis lazuli, carnelian, jade, turquoise, malachite, jasper, agate, chalcedony, garnet, sapphire, pearls, diamonds, emeralds. Inside : the two sarcophagus. Built in 1631 to house his favorite wife after she died giving birth to their 13th child, the emperor lay next to her.
It took more than 200,000 workers & 22 years to build.
My breath had been taken away for the second time in a row only, now, under extremely different instances, reasons. I found myself having to catch my breath, once more, India.
I walked the perimeter of the Taj Mahal the very next morning
at 6am to view it in warm sunrise morning light rays.
( please note the scale of things .... those little black specs by the front wall on the left side are adult people ...)
The 3rd person at the gates allowed in, I literally had the entire Taj Mahal to myself.
It glowed. It was golden. The structure seemed to lift off the ground bathed in that sumptuous light. I placed the palm of my hand upon the marble’s smooth surface making sure it was for real and so was I. Behind the Taj Mahal stretch a river. I listen to early morning prayer drums beating accompanied by low chanting, and was transported out of my known world into a dream a distant distance far far away past. To have been standing in that most holy of holys was ethereal, celestial, divine, and ephemeral. A daunting task to translate into descriptive words and language about an experience that is so mind-blowing and so far removed and unlike from anything I have ever known is a challenge.
You have to see it to believe it.
Placing my days in perspective, I struggled. I reflected upon the fact that my heart and my breath had been torn open in so many ways, in so many oppositional poles apart directions, and in such a short span of three transformational life-changing days.
An inner strength had surfaced in the wake of.
To personally witness mighty big brazen bigotry from everyone I encountered.
A sense of a reversal shoe being placed on my other privileged foot for once.
I got the slightest hint of a taste of a whiff of how most unwanted undesirably meager kin exist worldwide living every single moment of their lives outnumbered or out-powered by class, race, creed, culture, or differences.
I had experienced a pendulum polarity within my beating heart and heartbeat.
From stark acts of inhumanity to the very very best of humanity.
From outright uncalled for dehumanizing hatred to pure undying love.
From minuscule day to day riffs to stupendous monumental otherworldly
out of this world feats.
I contemplate the dichotomy of those days. Besides, being days of personal growth.
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I think about the steps I walk to achieve a goal.
Some predictably comfortably steady for the course.
And. Some. Wavering. Overfilled with trembling fear.
Some familiar with deep time & again well-worn ruts. Some strange & unknown and
for the very first wobbling hesitantly first baby steps time.
Thinking bout this,
this so-called marching forward footsteps metaphor in living life,
or taking steps,
or even taking leaps, …
time and again, …
the little bit scary new uncharted territory footprints
seem to carry a newly realized life long reward along with them.
The gold of your days.
Seems to be the case time and again.
Them thar gold in growth.
You go girl.