Agra Fort near Taj Mahal

Fort Agra Entrance

View of Taj Mahal From Fort

Parrot, one of many flying around the Taj and Fort

Princess Quarters, both of the princesses lived in twin quarters, but one was free and the other imprisoned

Queens's gardens surrounded by concubine quarters

King and Queen's apartment at Fort Agra

How the Queen took her showers (water came from slit in top)

Cannon ball damage in upper left corner

King's throne for receiving foreign dignitaries

You know who (son imprisoned his father in apartment at right)

Once a fishing pool where king and queen used bow and arrows to catch fish

Where King met public (his queen ruled his decisions while hidden from view)

So many vendors wanting to sell books

Lee with Abdul, who escorted us to train station after being our guide at the Fort (Note young fellow wanting to be in the photo behind us.   Many of our photos include onlookers who wanted to be in the photo, too)

After visiting the Taj Mahal and solving our camera and hotel issues, we headed over to Agra Fort, a huge redstone structure which sits within sight of the Taj Mahal alongside the same slow-moving, meandering Yamuna River in Agra.
It is an impressive structure in its own right. In its day, it had a moat around it filled with crocodiles and then, between the moat and the fort, grounds inhabited by tigers. Like the other forts we have visited, it was constructed in stages over the years. Abdul, who became our guide, is a student of history and told us how the  Fort and the Taj Mahal were built by generations of descendants of Akbar the Great, who forged the Mughal empire in the mid 1500s that spanned India and parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The saga of this ruling family makes the stories of British royal family seem quite boring by comparison. The elder generations slew whoever in their family was in the way of their succession to the throne and their later descendant, Auragzeb, reached the pinnacle of violence during his reign in the 1600s.
Auragzeb was the third son of Shahjahan, a great lover of architecture and builder of the Taj Mahal as a temple and shrine to Shajahan’s wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died in mid life while giving birth to a child. Auragzeb was a staunch Suni Muslim who was determined to eradicate Hinduism from his kingdom and detested what he regarded as his father’s wasteful investment in the creation of the Taj Mahal. He had his two older brothers murdered and justified it by deciding their love of women and drink was an unacceptable affront to Islam.  After taking the throne by force, with the assistance of one of his two sisters, Roshan Ara, he then imprisoned his father, Shahjahan for the last eight years of his father’s life. Only Jahan Ara, another sister to Auragzeb and Roshan Ara, stood by her father and looked after him during his prison years.
 The story goes that Shahjahan was able to view the Taj Mahal from his prison quarters and, when he was near death, Jahan Ara arranged to have him transported to the roof of Agra Fort and held him in her arms so he could glimpse the Taj Mahal as he died.
Abdul  told us this story with great enthusiasm and passion as he escorted us around the fort. He has done a lot of research on the historical background of the fort and the ruling family, so much so that at times he would stop speaking when he could tell other guides were trying to listen in and gather some details that only he seemed to know.  He pointed out the concubine quarters, the intricate sculpted detail of the structures,  the separate palaces for the sisters Jahan and Roshan, even the bowling-ball sized hole left on a fort wall after it was struck by a British cannon ball two centuries ago.
 We were shown an indented wall compartment where water could trickle down like an indoor water fountain, which if you  leaned against it, served as a cooling shower in summertime. There was  also a room with windows shaped in a way to enhance cross ventilation from the inside, while shielding anyone outside from being able to see when was going on in the room. Presumeably, this was so the kings over the years could meet with whichever concubine or wife they wished to for sexual relations.
Abdul, who said his last name was Jabar, became our companion for the day as it turned out. He was taking the same train out of Agra that we were (we were going to Delhi, Abdul to his home 40 kilometers north of Agra).
One more image. As we stood outside the fort talking to Abdul, a long line of schoolchildren walked two by two past us. Many turned their heads to look directly at us as they walked by. We were among just a handful of white people in the mass of visitors to the fort that day. It seemed we were something unusual for them to see, just as Agra Fort was for us to witness. Sam