"Poetry carved in stone": Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, part 2

And on Sunday, on to Fatehpur Sikri - the Mughal city built by Akbar around the tomb and shrine of Saleem Chishti, to whom he prayed for a son (whom he named Saleem in the sain'ts honor but who would later become Jehangir), the city that served as his capital for 15 years and was mysteriously abandoned in 1585 when Akbar moved to Lahore. The soul of Fatehpur Sikri is, of course, the shrine, and so that was the first place we visited. Although the place was swarming with vendors trying to sell us postcards, jewelry, the usual tourist junk, I felt like the shrine itself had a calming atmosphere - maybe it was the presence of hundreds of generations of tombs of the Chishti family surrounding the main sanctum and the cool shadows of the covered walkways and gates around the edges (I've begun to wonder whether or not European monasteries got this distinctive architectural feature from India - I've seen them in every mosque we've visited). Anyway, the tomb of Saleem Chishti is an elegant structure in the center of the reddish-stone mosque complex, all curls and tracery of white marble and lattice-work windows through with the white smoke of incense lazily floats. Inside, the tomb itself is covered in colorful, embroidered sheets as well as garlands of flowers, and in the heat and stillness of the little sanctuary you can hear the murmured prayers of the pilgrims crowded around it. On the pillars of the tomb and on the lattice-work windows are tied thousands of red and yellow threads, little prayers for children, marriage, love, and other everyday miracles.

Exploring the rest of the complex, we saw tombs hundreds of years old (Saleem Chishti died in 1572) of the saint's various extended family members, as well as other interesting historical oddities (like the entrance to the fabled tunnel through which, if you take your history lessons from Mughal-e-Azam, Anarkali left Akbar's court and traveled underground all the way to Lahore where the other entrance is supposedly in the old Anarkali Bazaar):

Talking to some of the kids trying to sell us stuff also proved to be an interesting cultural experience. Upon hearing that I was American, this sentence tumbled out of one little boy's mouth: "AmericaverygoodObamagreatman MichaelJacksondead." I'm glad that the two things America is associated with are Obama and Michael Jackson. Also upon finding out that the girl I was with was both American and Muslim, this same kid said "But there are being no Muslims in America except for Barack Obama!" That was a fun discussion to have.

The other main attraction of Fatehpur Sikri was the palace of Akbar, where his Nine Jewels rose to fame and where, as in the Red Fort and other palaces, the Diwan-i-Am and Diwan-i-Khas, as well as the queen's quarters, boasted gorgeous architecture. There were also some unique details to this palace complex, though, that spoke to the ash-o-ishrat of the Mughals, such as special concert halls, spaces for fountains and gardens, and a live-size parcheesi board built into the ground, where some unlucky servants would have to be the pieces. All in all, a pleasant foray into the age of the Mughal Empire, even when the sun made the stone underfoot literally blistering.