Mona lisa louvre overcrowding
As soon as I read that its time to take Mona Lisa down, I was reminded of the time my brother missed seeing TajMahal as a kid, when he was there. It was closed that day. I still feel bad about that.
The auto-rickshaw got us from the railway station and left us in front of a gate. No sooner
than we got down from it, a rickshaw wallah just forced us to get into a rickshaw
promising us that he would take us to the ticket-counter and more than anything he was
just going to charge 4 bucks for it. He then started taking us into a gully and stopped in
front of a shop which had the models of Taj. We were reluctant to buy anything. We were
not tourists. There was some work to be done in the city and it was too early to disturb
the professor. We had to kill time and moreover one could not go to Agra and come back
and say that there was no time for the Taj.
Not being in the shopping spree, we said no to all the things the shopkeeper tried
showing, small marble-models of the Taj, some which would serve as night lamps. There
was one such model lying at home. My brother once came to Taj on a school trip he
bought this lamp but he didn't get to see the Taj. they had been to Agra on a day when the
Taj would be closed for visitors. I didn't want to waste time buying its look-alikes and not
see the actual. I was preparing myself to take in the big vision.
He took us into many more gullis. There were too many shops with band players
practising familiar tunes apt for a marriage ceremony. We started getting suspicious if he
was taking us to the Taj are just wasting our time on the side-lines. We asked the
rickshaw-wallah sternly if we were ever going to be there. And in few seconds, I caught
the glimpse of the big thing. It was there.
My first glimpse of it was : Greenery on the left side of the Canvas, the rectangular block
of the kutcha houses on the right and the dome in the middle. It did seem like Mecca to
me. Only that there was not a sea of people to get lost in. That was another concern : the
crowd. We didn't want to wait for long. We looked forward for quality viewing of the
Taj. So we thought that early-birds get the best view.
There is a place I know, where I did die to go there but somehow the big queue puts me
off. This place was my Mecca until I went there. Now I no longer feel the same way.
Tirupathi is a famous place. God, Pilgrim, The Journey. Strange concepts.
They say you get to see God only when he wants you to. I thought me, the sinner was
never going to get the cleansing the soul opportunity. It did finally materialise. Before I
started viewing Tirupathi as my Mecca there was another place called Shirdi.
With years Gods change, so do Meccas.
As soon as we got down from the rickshaw, we had to deposit any electronic goods that
we had in our possession. At Mysore, when you are handing over your possessions
temporarily, at the entrance of the palace you see huge elephants doing the rounds of the
ride with the mahout but without the decorations which an elephant in Kerala was entitled
to.
About elephants, a closer look at them reveals sagging flesh with creases on it. One has to
get used to seeing them without the tusks.
Limited Tusks. Depleted elephants. Some of these tusks also go into the making of
bangles which newly wed women wear for over a month or so compulsorily. I have not
heard if anyone volunteered to wear these heavy bangles for long.
Scribblings. Taj was saved from what the Khetri was not. Scribblings of monument-value
unaware people. When you see what is scribbled on the wall with coal or chalk, the limit
is the name and the city at the. Never the full address. So not only heritage unconcsious
but also unaccomodating hosts.
Khetri has a fort or two. The name was heard in geography classes inlieu of places with
coal fields. I have not seen these real ones. My only exposure o the coal fields is the
simulated ones underground in a museum. It was scary. All the walls were painted black.
The dark tunnel was scary enough to make one trace steps back. Underground routes
always fascinated me. In the middle of the history class, when there was a mention about
Golconda fort having an underground tunnel connected all the way up to some other
place, I conjured up the effort required in clearing the cob-webs and then you cannot
dismiss the possibility of snakes and bats being the denizens of the den.
A friend of mine lives in a huge mansion of British times in a village. Now this house is
said to have a tunnel which leads to the local lake. I would have set out with a fishing rod
in one hand and a torch light in another. Torch flames of yore are too difficult to manage
and then there's the question of oiling it now and then to keep it glowing till the
destination is reached.
Marble has not degraded. So there's no way its going to give us a clue that it has stayed
on earth for quite some time. Somehow yellow pages almost feeble enough to be crushed
into dry tiny particles as easily as dry bougainvillea, have an added value to them: the
historic legacy of aging, the proof of life till now. If one thing in this place makes it seem
that it has weathered time, that is the degraded wooden boundary put around the map of
the 'gopuram'.
The seeming looks of ruralness can be mainly because, the villages I have been to, smear
the house floors in potter's red. The red blocks for repairs paired with the building
opposite the ticket-counter in red are as they seem they are. There are misleading places
like this internet surfing centre which gave me a shock as soon as I opened the door. It
was a small room and I expected it to be crammed with at least one computer and the
accessories and there was nothing of such sort. In the admitted shock state, I fail to recall
what is it that was there in the room. At a more primitive level, they were decorative
pieces on sale.
If there is a difference in the pictures of Tajmahal that I have seen and the sight in front
of me, then it is the eucalyptus trees, that is what they seemed in the picture. And the
most famous spot you see in the newspapers the day following the visit of a foreign
ambassador to the country , Mr. And Mrs. delegates sitting on the slab under the strict
vigilance of photographer who is probably more interested in looking out for a subject
willing to hold his hand high enough such that his camera trickery makes it seem that
here's the man who's as tall as the Taj and can hold the top like it were a child's play.
The guide is thrilled with the symmetry of the whole place as it happened by chance, like
the symmetry you get with the ink blots got onto the paper folded in two with a string
dipped in ink.
As soon as I read that its time to take Mona Lisa down, I was reminded of the time my brother missed seeing TajMahal as a kid, when he was there. It was closed that day. I still feel bad about that.
The auto-rickshaw got us from the railway station and left us in front of a gate. No sooner
than we got down from it, a rickshaw wallah just forced us to get into a rickshaw
promising us that he would take us to the ticket-counter and more than anything he was
just going to charge 4 bucks for it. He then started taking us into a gully and stopped in
front of a shop which had the models of Taj. We were reluctant to buy anything. We were
not tourists. There was some work to be done in the city and it was too early to disturb
the professor. We had to kill time and moreover one could not go to Agra and come back
and say that there was no time for the Taj.
Not being in the shopping spree, we said no to all the things the shopkeeper tried
showing, small marble-models of the Taj, some which would serve as night lamps. There
was one such model lying at home. My brother once came to Taj on a school trip he
bought this lamp but he didn't get to see the Taj. they had been to Agra on a day when the
Taj would be closed for visitors. I didn't want to waste time buying its look-alikes and not
see the actual. I was preparing myself to take in the big vision.
He took us into many more gullis. There were too many shops with band players
practising familiar tunes apt for a marriage ceremony. We started getting suspicious if he
was taking us to the Taj are just wasting our time on the side-lines. We asked the
rickshaw-wallah sternly if we were ever going to be there. And in few seconds, I caught
the glimpse of the big thing. It was there.
My first glimpse of it was : Greenery on the left side of the Canvas, the rectangular block
of the kutcha houses on the right and the dome in the middle. It did seem like Mecca to
me. Only that there was not a sea of people to get lost in. That was another concern : the
crowd. We didn't want to wait for long. We looked forward for quality viewing of the
Taj. So we thought that early-birds get the best view.
There is a place I know, where I did die to go there but somehow the big queue puts me
off. This place was my Mecca until I went there. Now I no longer feel the same way.
Tirupathi is a famous place. God, Pilgrim, The Journey. Strange concepts.
They say you get to see God only when he wants you to. I thought me, the sinner was
never going to get the cleansing the soul opportunity. It did finally materialise. Before I
started viewing Tirupathi as my Mecca there was another place called Shirdi.
With years Gods change, so do Meccas.
As soon as we got down from the rickshaw, we had to deposit any electronic goods that
we had in our possession. At Mysore, when you are handing over your possessions
temporarily, at the entrance of the palace you see huge elephants doing the rounds of the
ride with the mahout but without the decorations which an elephant in Kerala was entitled
to.
About elephants, a closer look at them reveals sagging flesh with creases on it. One has to
get used to seeing them without the tusks.
Limited Tusks. Depleted elephants. Some of these tusks also go into the making of
bangles which newly wed women wear for over a month or so compulsorily. I have not
heard if anyone volunteered to wear these heavy bangles for long.
Scribblings. Taj was saved from what the Khetri was not. Scribblings of monument-value
unaware people. When you see what is scribbled on the wall with coal or chalk, the limit
is the name and the city at the. Never the full address. So not only heritage unconcsious
but also unaccomodating hosts.
Khetri has a fort or two. The name was heard in geography classes inlieu of places with
coal fields. I have not seen these real ones. My only exposure o the coal fields is the
simulated ones underground in a museum. It was scary. All the walls were painted black.
The dark tunnel was scary enough to make one trace steps back. Underground routes
always fascinated me. In the middle of the history class, when there was a mention about
Golconda fort having an underground tunnel connected all the way up to some other
place, I conjured up the effort required in clearing the cob-webs and then you cannot
dismiss the possibility of snakes and bats being the denizens of the den.
A friend of mine lives in a huge mansion of British times in a village. Now this house is
said to have a tunnel which leads to the local lake. I would have set out with a fishing rod
in one hand and a torch light in another. Torch flames of yore are too difficult to manage
and then there's the question of oiling it now and then to keep it glowing till the
destination is reached.
Marble has not degraded. So there's no way its going to give us a clue that it has stayed
on earth for quite some time. Somehow yellow pages almost feeble enough to be crushed
into dry tiny particles as easily as dry bougainvillea, have an added value to them: the
historic legacy of aging, the proof of life till now. If one thing in this place makes it seem
that it has weathered time, that is the degraded wooden boundary put around the map of
the 'gopuram'.
The seeming looks of ruralness can be mainly because, the villages I have been to, smear
the house floors in potter's red. The red blocks for repairs paired with the building
opposite the ticket-counter in red are as they seem they are. There are misleading places
like this internet surfing centre which gave me a shock as soon as I opened the door. It
was a small room and I expected it to be crammed with at least one computer and the
accessories and there was nothing of such sort. In the admitted shock state, I fail to recall
what is it that was there in the room. At a more primitive level, they were decorative
pieces on sale.
If there is a difference in the pictures of Tajmahal that I have seen and the sight in front
of me, then it is the eucalyptus trees, that is what they seemed in the picture. And the
most famous spot you see in the newspapers the day following the visit of a foreign
ambassador to the country , Mr. And Mrs. delegates sitting on the slab under the strict
vigilance of photographer who is probably more interested in looking out for a subject
willing to hold his hand high enough such that his camera trickery makes it seem that
here's the man who's as tall as the Taj and can hold the top like it were a child's play.
The guide is thrilled with the symmetry of the whole place as it happened by chance, like
the symmetry you get with the ink blots got onto the paper folded in two with a string
dipped in ink.
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