Thoughts in Agra

At about 3 o’clock in the morning, there was a period of silence – true silence that we hadn’t experienced since we’ve arrived in India. The hotel was completely quiet, the street amazingly was quiet – no cars moving, no honking, no people moving around. It’s amazing how you notice something like this when it is so rare.

It gave me a few minutes to think about things we’ve seen and try to put things into perspective some. Karen has noted some of the cultural differences already. One that bothers me particularly is the children. I see children everyday. They are quick to smile and to laugh. They are curious and interested in the world around them. Here, this does not appear to be so – or at least not what is shown to the white foreigners. Here, children are taught or have learned quickly, to take every opportunity to get something from you – money usually. A smile is immediately followed by a hand extended for a “tip”. A “hello” is an invitation to engage them so they can then try to sell something or “guide” you to something to then earn a tip. An opportunity for a photograph is something to sell. Nowhere else in the world that I have been, at least, do children come up and ask you to take their photo so you then have to give them money. Most children are happy to have their picture taken just for the sake of it.

You learn quickly that you have to then ignore the children too – if you engage them, then they follow you for blocks until you either succumb and give them something or usually until the guide yells at them something in Hindi to run off. Children shouldn’t have to be ignored like this.

Of course, I don’t want to generalize about all of India or all Indians. Agra is a place of amazing dichotomies – old and new. There are huge monuments built from the finest materials on the planet that are perfect in their architecture and their design built as monuments to the dead and gone. Huge treasures of the rulers and emperors were spent on these buildings and not on the people they were charged with taking care of. There is an influx of white foreign travelers on a scale larger than anywhere else in India because of these monuments that have paid quite a bit to get here. The community here lives in tents and houses falling down. This is certainly not unique to India, we have the same at home and have seen it all over the world. It just seems more magnified here than anywhere I’ve been before. More obvious to be seen and understood, even if you don’t care to even try and see it. Maybe what’s even more astounding, though, is the fact that so many tourist do not see it from the window of their big white tour buses…or have gotten good at blocking it out.

At 5 o’clock, the Hindi singing tape started again from the temple down the road.