Lomography

Taj Mahal, India
written by wil6ka on February 8th, 2009 , 10 comments (2 votes)

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I am not such a touristy traveller, checking out all the sites and then getting drunk with your native co-travellers. No, I want to see, what the locals do, feel and think. So my tracks are different to the ones of the masses. But there are certainly some spots that you have to see, when you go abroad. So I went to Taj Mahal and to write it from the beginning: I was disappointed.

This is due to many reason. One of them is a shitty guide, who stole my last nerves by giving me the look every time I pulled one of my dozen cameras. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Because he knew, that this means we are taking our time. And time is money and we are no money! Also it is strangely small. I always had the image of Taj Mahal being huge like the moon and something like a new world wonder. And do you know why I thought this way? Because all the pictures of the palace are done without people standing in the way.

Thereby you have no relation to the object. What our guide told as, which btw is the same text that you can read in any guide, is, that this palace was build by the Arabic emperor Shah Jahan to mourn his dead wife Mumtaz Mahal. It was built from 1632-1648, which was during the time of the Islamic reign of the Mughals. But the style of the Taj combines Persian, Indian, Turkish and Islamic architecture. It is a UNESCO world heritage site. Ist shining facade is made of white marble and inside there are thousands of precious gemstones. But to be honest, you don’t really see much of it, hence there are no lights inside and flashing is prohibited. Well yeah Arabic mystery, alright, but… The tombs of Shah Janah and Mumtaz lay down in the inner chamber of the Taj, but…you guessed it…you can’t see it. But in this case I would say, it’s alright.

They should rest in peace and should have some freedom to play a game of backgammon once in a while. The garden is really pretty and symbolizes, as well as the artificial channel, the pathway to paradise. And drawings of phrases of the Qu´ran are very beautiful, too. You can say what you might. You have to see it if you are around the corner. But take your electronic light with you.