So you see the Taj Mahal everyday?’’ People have often asked me this question on learning that I belonged to the city of Taj. ‘‘No, but that is the place I take all friends and visitors to, six to seven times in a year.’’ ‘‘Don’t you like looking at it then?’’ ‘‘Yes! But not the city anymore. Once in Agra, you cannot move around much. Inadequate conveyance, no parks, no shopping malls, no hang-out corners, where do you go? Life’s stagnant there. Taj is the only thing that has kept the city going,’’ I remember telling friends.
As time passed, Agra, the place where I was born, became more remote in my memory. I was anxious to see the overflowing bazaars and its residents again but my visit was a disappointment.
It is strange to be in Agra once again, especially after living in Gujarat for some years. You suffer a loss of identity, as you feel your way through the indifferent crowds in the city late in the evening. The cycle-rickshaw is the best way of getting about Agra. Its leisurely, gliding motion is in keeping with the pace of life in the crowded bazaars.
Flat treeless societies have mushroomed around the city, pavements have been obliterated by bhajiawalas, tea-shops, cobblers, and piles of accumulated junk.
Vegetable vendors are busy freshening their stocks with liberal sprinklings of water, children are dawdling on the road on their way to school, girls with flapping pigtails are going to college chattering in groups like noisy parrots.
Waking up early with the flavour of jalebis, amidst innumerable cups of strong sweet tea, Agraites begin on the humdrum affair of living a new day. Come evening and the crawling hours are replaced by waiting scooter rickshaws and bursting lines of urchins outside cinema halls.
The city has not changed its character over the years, nor has its face acquired a different look. The old buildings and landmarks (the ugly statues frowning upon the populace) are still there. The lanes and alleys are as tortuous and mysterious as ever.
Cloth merchants and sweetmeat sellers may have changed their names, but their work has not given place to new professions. There are hardly any options. Despite the throbbing vitality of the enterprising, flashy, North-Indians, the city has simply refused to grow. Except its leather industry (and those syrupy pethas) the economic engine of Agra has never had enough steam. Over the years, the city has plunged into irreparable chaos.
The only growth has been that the city has been inundated by a fleet of tempos that leave you ash smeared and is bursting with street vendors on the pavements who are unwilling to spare an inch of their sacred plot. The only time life sizzles in Agra is when a VVIP drives down the Mall Road for a glimpse of the Taj. I have witnessed the rudiments of civic life only then.
Agra feels like a mess. The city is leavened by the spirit of nonchalance best captured in its ‘chalta hai’ attitude. My friends have always scorned my attachment to Agra, commenting that I have been brought up in an overgrown babutown.
Space was not the issue, I realise now, attitude is.
P.S. This editorial piece was published in Indian Express in 2002.
