INDIA: Day 5--Holi and the Ghost City

Because Sunday was Holi, the festival of colours with people using paint guns to blow colorful paint on each other, our driver and bus boy suggested that we not leave the hotel until 1 p.m. when the festival would be over. They really did not want paint on the van or broken windows. So we enjoyed sleeping in, eating a leisurely breakfast and exploring the luxurious hotel. While we shopped in the stores, Brent walked outside the gates and took some wonderful photographs of teen-aged boys enjoying the festivities. When a group of young people with paint guns and a policeman started to approach him, he decided it was time to come back in the gates.

As we drove out of Agra after 1 p.m.on our way to Jaipur, we witnessed the effects of Holi. The most predominant colors were pink and purple. People's hair, skin and clothes were covered with every color in the rainbow. A multicolored passenger on a motorcycle showed us what looked like a real gun and motioned to us to take his picture. At 39 kilometers outside of Agra, we stopped at Fatehpur Sikri, a city that was built between 1571 and 1584 by the Mughal Emperor Akbar, who was the grandfather of Shan Jahan, who had the Taj Mahal constructed as a symbol of undying love for his deceased wife. In addition to being a great and powerful ruler, Akbar was a very busy man with his three wives and 350 illegal wives in his harem. However, he also was a very sad man because he had no children with his three legal wives. A holy man blessed his Hindu wife (the other two were Muslim and Christian) and she had a son, who was raised a Muslim, the religion of his father. Naturally, she was the favorite wife because she had everything going for her--she came from a royal family, was extremely beautiful and gave Akbar a son. Now many women come to Fatehpur Sikri to wish for a son.

The reason that Fatehpur Sikri, the capital of the Mughal Empire under Akbar, is known as the Ghost City was because the royal family and residents abandoned it after 16 years due to the lack of water. The five-story palace with 176 pillars was called the House of Breezes because it was well suited to the hot weather. The short 5'3" king used the upper level of his residence as the Winter Palace and the downstairs area for the summer bedrooms. We had to watch our heads when entering buildings and rooms so we did not bump them. In the Winter Palace, Akbar had the ultimate in the king-sized bed department--it was off the ground so high that he had to use a ladder to reach the bed that seemed to measure 10 feet by 12 feet. In the courtyard, the emperor played a game similar to hopscotch except it used 16 beautiful women who moved when the emperor rolled the dice.

He had a palace constructed for each of his three wives. The first wife, who was Muslim, had a one-room small palace but was very lucky because she lived closest to the emperor. The Christian wife's palace was shaped like a cross to resemble a church with a mixture of many religions. The favorite Hindu wife had a much larger palace with a winter house, summer palace, a place to worship and a special kitchen because she was a vegetarian. All the security guards were eunuchs. The hallways from the gates were zigzagged so the women could not see out and the men could not see in.

In the parliament house, the emperor sat in the middle column with his minsters sitting around the perimeter. Stairs on either side allowed the emperor and his ministers to climb to their stations. The columns in this structure had designs for all different religions with the center column resembling a lotus flower. Being a sentimentalist, Akbar had his favorite elephant buried in the Elephant Tower outside the palace.

In the large courtyard stands the tomb of the holy man (Sheikh Salim Chisti) who granted Akbar his wish for a son with his Hindu queen Jodhabai. This mosque is an exact replica of Mecca and is surrounded by the graves of many local people. Outside the mosque, Ken purchased a scarf and two strings. He placed the scarf on the altar and sprinkled the rose petals in the bag on top of it. Then we tied our strings in knots around the window gratings and made a wish. When the wish comes true, either we are to come back to untie them or to give money to a charity to help those in need.

After our tour was completed, we had at least five more hours on the road. On this journey, we received a taste of rural India with water buffalo, cows, camels and elephants. Women wearing saris were working in the fields. At the approved rest stop, which also was a government store with souvenirs, we met an attractive young couple who were staying in India for four months, partly on a vacation and partly as a spiritual journey. They both showed evidence of participating in the Holi festivities. Thanks to working online, they were still employed in their positions in the United States. We all wished that we could have done such a trip when we were their ages.