A travel back to Times
I had made up my mind one day I will visit Fatehpur Sikhri the day my father had brought travel guides for us. It was in the year 1997. I was in third standard then. Our puja vaction was a trip that our parents had arranged for us. It was then my father had brought those travel guides of Agra, Fatehpur Sikhri, Kullu, Manali, Jaipur, and many more. My eyes had struck only on two places- Kullu, Manali, and Fatehpur as a seven year old.
This time we both planned to take a tour to my much awaited place Fatehpur Sikhri. We booked a Gozo cab on Thursday and planned our trip at 6 am early in the morning on the follwoing Saturday. It was in the first week of February and the winter till then had not subsided. He first took the bath and on seeing him I got encouraged to carry out that bravery act. I had woke up at 3am only. My mind is always tensed whenever I need to travel somewhere, so for that particular day I had become an unusually early riser.
I was very excited and Fatehpur Sikhri kept up to my expectations. When I first saw the huge entrance gate at the entry point of Fatehpur Sikhri I was in awe. We then boarded a bus which took us to Buland Darwaza and we started from there to explore on our own. The beauty of those lofty architecture was mesmerizing. The clay colored momuments with intricate archaic carvings will surely behold any layman’s sight. I loved their skills in building such settings that history termed as monuments. An expensive word that few such settings deserve.
We did not have much time with us as we had booked the cab only for two days. After finishing Fatehpur Sikhri at around 2pm, we immediately rushed for lunch at the nearest outlet and had chicken biryani — our favourite. He then asked me if it would be okay for me to sight see Agra Fort as well. I replied affrimatively as I did not feel much tired. Our next venture was then Agra Fort. On reaching Agra Fort, the travellers had multiplied thrice the times we had at Fatehpur. The gents queue was longer than the ladies queue so both of us made separate lines. As usual I emerged the winner, with two tickets on my hand. We then marched ahead to the grand gate we need to cross in order to enter the fort. By the time we reached the gate, he was barred from entering as he had a backpag with him which had fruits and water bottles. I waited for him next to the grand gate until he turned up after 20 mins. The way was quite long.
Agra Fort was all about marbles and glaze and it was my second visit. All I could recall was my memories with my parents in 1996.
After we finished the day’s travel, we landed up in our hotel at Agra. It was a well polished one and we enjoyed our night there though both of us caught up with a rather bad allergy that we got at Fathehpur becasue of the swarm of bees which engulfed us. At night the allergy got worse and I could not sleep for the entire night because my nose was blocked with a sore throat.
The next morning at 9am we called our driver who took us to the Taj Mahal. I had already visited the place with my family in 1997. But looking back to those days, many things have surely changed. We drove to a point when the traffic authorites asked us to park the car in the large field where many other vehicles also were parked. From there we took a golf cart up till the ticket counter. And since it was a Sunday morning, not many people had queued up. We got our tickets and off started our walk to the grand palace.
Here I would like to add visual texts rather than words since pictures speaks more than words :)
