The city of the Taj is acquiring the facade of a metropolis, losing some of its ancient grandeur and charm, M H Ahssan describes.
Between the snail like pace of a small town and the unceasing bustle of a metropolis lies the city of Agra. It’s certainly a city as old as can be. It finds a mention in the Mahabharata, where it was described as Agarbana (paradise). Its present name came into existence after the decline of Mughal Empire in the 18th century: prior to that, the city was called Akbarabad, named after Akbar the Great.
Agra, once the capital of the Mughal empire and today the tourism capital of India, is on the verge of being counted among the metropolitan cities. It certainly has most of their worst excesses: big cars, multistoried buildings, high prices of land, big shopping malls, McDonalds and ‘Café Coffee Day’ outlets, big nursing homes with hefty price tags and so on. The list is endless.
But, other than these so-called symbols of modern metropolitan India, Agra can also boast of some of the oldest colleges in the country — Agra College and Raja Balvant Singh College, apart from a medical college. Its fame, of course, rests on the monuments spread across the city, three of them world heritage sites, of which the most famous is the king of all monuments: the Taj Mahal.
How is Agra managing the transition from ancient city of splendid structures to modern Indian metro? Not particularly smoothly. Enter from any point in a road and you get stuck in a chaotic snarl. That’s because the roads have every modern form of transport along with some from another age: cycles pedalled in the middle of the road, big threewheeler ‘Vikrams’ and something appropriately called ‘Jugaad’ — because it is a complete improvisation. “The people in Agra have no traffic sense. It seems as if the person who is going in front of you has given you the power of attorney for his life and it is up to you to do whatever you want with it,” says local resident Dharmendra Singh.
And the Jugaad has almost no single authority to be afraid of, as the vehicle is neither registered with the transport department nor does the driver of this great invention require any license to ply it on the road. So if you’re involved in an accident with this contraption, you cannot note down the number and complain about it. Why? “It’s not made in any factory. We make it ourselves with less money than it costs to buy a tractor,” says Surendra, a Jugaad owner.
Adding to the woes of the city’s residents is the poor condition of the second level roads — the main roads are in fairly good shape — even in areas where the tourist traffic is concentrated. For example, the road in front of Sikandra, where Akbar’s tomb is located, is in such bad shape, and traffic management so poor, that it can take more than half an hour to travel just 100 metres. Inevitably, this causes a jam on the Delhi-Agra Highway, offsetting the advantage of a four-lane highway.
Residents, when asked what the worst things about Agra are, say the water is simply undrinkable — it is very hard and has a bad taste. And according to Dharmpal Singh, the local Jan Morcha MLA, the city’s drainage system wreaks havoc during the monsoon.
“The worst thing about Agra is its location”, says AK Lal, secretary, Tourism Guild of Agra. He points out that since it is only a few hours away from Delhi, tourists prefer to make day trips and Agra loses revenue. According to Ravindra Kumar Verma, an former worker at a local iron foundry, the worst thing about the city of the Taj is the Taj itself. Some years ago, the Supreme Court ordered the closure of polluting industries — mainly iron foundries — inside the Taj Trapezium Zone and Verma lost his job.
BUT AGRA continues to play a dominant part in leather manufacturing: there are large shoe factories with hundreds of workers and in some areas, entire families create high quality shoes for well-known brands. Marble and stone carving, zardozi and woollen carpets are other Agra specialties.
Is Agra soon going to become a metro, as it seems from the malls and growing apartment culture? “While land is still freely available, I do not think there is any point in buying a flat,” says Dr HN Singh, a former professor at Raja Balvant Singh College, dismissively. In fact, visiting the TDI mall — the biggest in Agra — one can see that it will be a while before the big city culture takes over. The mall was almost bereft of shoppers, since people still love to shop in older markets like Sadar Bazaar and Raja Mandi. Instead of enjoying pizzas, burgers or a cappuccino, they prefer to eat their favourite kachoris and samosas and drink lassi and nukkad-wali masala chai.
What’s interesting is that most inhabitants truly enjoy the city’s legacy as well as the chaotic present. They also talk about the diverse cultural colours of the place. “Agra is part of the Braj region, which consists of Mathura, Vrindavan, Agra, Etah and Bharatpur. Braj means Lord Krishna’s courtyard, a place where there are more temples than houses and more relations than people. The old India has shrunk, but it still lives here in its cacophony, its language and its old yet rich customs and traditions,” says Devesh Vashishtha, a journalist who once lived in Agra and is still clearly in love with it. •
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