Fatehpur Sikri: City of Ghosts

There are some places which truly enchant you. When I use the word, 'enchant', I am referring to a process by which one becomes completely immersed in the place's atmosphere, beauty, and spirit, making it difficult to part ways from. For me, Fatehpur Sikri has been one of those places.

The first time I happened to discover the Mughal emperor, Akbar's abandoned  capital-city, Fatehpur Sikri was in the film, Pardes (1997), starring Shah Rukh Khan, Mahima Chaudhary, and Apurva Agnihotri. In the film, it is referred as to the 'kila' or the fort and as you can see in the clip below, it functions as a backdrop for a budding romance (save for the rather filmi bit shot in the studio at the end!):

 

After watching the film, Fatehpur Sikri somehow remained with me for a long time although I could not quite pinpoint what it was that so intrigued me about the place.

Upon further researching, I learnt that Akbar built Fatehpur Sikri 39 km from Agra  in 1570  as the new capital for the Mughal empire in honor of the Sufi saint, Salim Chisti; it was the first planned city of the Mughal Empire and entirely built in the Mughal architechural fashion. However, due to water shortages which were unable to sustain the population, it was abandoned a mere 14 years later and now remains a perfectly preserved ghost city, bearing witness to magnificent examples of hybrid Mughal architechure. 

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I spent a few weeks in Delhi for an artists' residency; during my time there, a couple of the resident artists made a plan to visit Taj Mahal one day and I decided to accompany them, more excited about the prospect of finally visiting Fatehpur Sikri, which had dominated my imagination for long, than the Taj Mahal. Indeed, upon reaching and wandering around Taj Mahal, I could not help but think that its beauty was too obvious, too expected, perhaps due to the virtue of  it being so recognisable. However, I must admit that I saw it by noon and Taj Mahal is a hydra-headed beauty, metamorphosing into different creatures at different times of the day. Perhaps, I may feel differently were I to see it during dawn or dusk or as my mother once had the opportunity to do so, by moonlight!

Fatehpur Sikri

We left Agra sometime after lunch and arrived at Fatehpur Sikri a couple of hours before dusk. I personally feel that it was the most beautiful time to visit the place for the dusk lent the place an extraordinary beauty that perhaps other times of the day could not do so; the roseate sandstone gleamed and glowed in the diminishing light and this nebulous junction between day and night suspended the place in another realm together. As I meandered through the arches, courtyards, passages, and rooms that I had long wished to encounter, I thought of ghost towns that I had visited in the United States. I was not sure whether 'ghost town' was an apt epithet for them for they did not appear to be haunt of ghosts even so dead and static did they seem. In Fatehpur Sikri, though, it struck me the place was not as much a fossil as a city simply waiting for all of us to leave to become alive again: a veritable city of ghosts, indeed.**

I also recollect that Jodha Akbar (2008), starring Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai, was being shot then and it was a curious intermingling of history, imagination, and cinematic anticipation as I peeped into the courtyard complex of Jodha-bai, reputedly Akbar's favorite queen.

Jodha-bai's courtyard complex

I could not visit the white marble filigree-screened tomb of Salim Chishti that day and while it was disappointing, I consoled myself with the thought that it only meant that I would have reason to return to Fatehpur Sikri to tie a sacred thread in the dargah and partake of a city ensnared in time....once again.

The tomb of Salim Chisti

Is there a place that has enchanted you and which you would like to keep continually returning to?

** Interestingly enough, Fatehpur Sikri features in the Hindi film, Lal Patthar (1971) where it plays an elemental role in the plot and has a ghost story attached to it; Lal Patthar, or Red Stones, is in reference to the red sandstone that Fatehpur Sikri is abstracted from

Blogging at Her Blueprint

Powerpuff Arabic

I am excited to share that I will now be blogging about contemporary women artists from the Middle East and the subcontinent on International Museum of Women's blog, Her Blueprint. The International Museum of Women is an online social museum documenting global changes, representative of how the digital twenty first century has impacted the way we preserve, document, curate, and disseminate knowledge.

Here is my first post on Corinne Martin, whom I had earlier blogged about over here.

If you are eager to see a particular artist covered on the blog, do let me know - I would love to learn more about them...

Image courtesy Corinne Martin

Omani Beaches: A Place Where There Was Nowhere Left to Go

"Remember that you and I made this journey, that we went together to a place where there was nowhere left to go."

Namesake (2003), Jhumpa Lahiri

Continuing to meditate along the lines of my last post, I recently visited Sifah beach about 25 km from Muscat. I had heard much about its white sand beach and that alone was enough to intrigue and compel me into visiting it. The ironical thing is that I have never ever been to a white sand beach or at least, not in my memory. I was born in Australia and my parents have plenty of photographs of a toddler me delightedly building sandcastles upon Brisbane's famous Gold Coast white sand beaches; yet, I sadly have no memories whatsoever of my Australia sojourn. For some reason, though, the notion of a sea of white fringing  all that blue strikes me as being incredibly beautiful and elevates it above a well, say, an ordinary dun-hued sand beach.

As it happened, we arrived just before sunset at Sifah, where the dying light had robbed the lustre from the seemingly white sand - and the rocky beach at low-tide was filled with an armada of marine creatures which would clearly have preferred to been beneath the veil of the sea: spiky black sea-urchins, star-fish, tiny fish, and a bronzed crab, both of us scuttling away from each other in mutual fright. I perhaps arrived at the wrong time of the day to properly appreciate the beach but the drive was fairly spectacular, cutting through  dusk-light drenched mountains and driving along roads overlooking mangrove-edged lagoons and dust-cloud filled gravel valleys transformed into makeshift football fields. Every now and then, we passed through villages, where dusk meant the inhabitants clustered around their homes and gossiped and we had to wait for herds of plump, long-haired goats to cross the road before finally moving ahead. Indeed at times,  inside the heart of the mountains and finally at the shore itself, it was difficult to believe that Muscat with its urban bustle and lights was mere kilometres away. 

Given that Oman has a 1500 km coastline, there are no dearth of beaches in Muscat and its immediate vicinity - and it is unimaginable for me to be away from the beach for too long. When I was a child, we would often drive up to Sawadi, which is located 85 km from Muscat, whose beach was lavishly littered with shells and I remember one of the best parts of the day after the frolicking and eating and playing was walking along the beach just before sunset, picking up shells. When we returned home, I was never inclined towards  looking up the shells and accordingly categorise them: I was quite happy that they simply functioned as souvenirs from a wonderful day at the beach.

Sometimes, there were other treasures to be gleaned from the beach, other than shells:

A feather, visual whispers...

Each beach has its own personality, which renders it distinct from the others. For me, my favorite beaches are those which are akin to an abandoned garden, empty, desolate, and peacefully existing as they must have done for many centuries: the ritual of low and high-tide, the subterranean world beneath the shore and the corresponding submarine one beneath the water, the almost invisible yet there marks of water enameling  the shore and the galaxy of sun-polished and water-shaped shells and rocks crowding the sand, like nature's bargain baskets. Yet, these days, the increasing presence of rubbish or the distant appearance of emerging hotel developments or the ominous rumble of beach bikes in the beaches  rudely encroaches upon and destroys the feeling of inviolability and serenity and temporary disconnect from the world. I find myself having to travel further and further away from Muscat to find that elusive beach, still unexplored and quietly slumbering away...where as you step on the shore, that dramatic convergence of land, water, and sky, you think you have nowhere else to go - and all that stretches ahead of you  - to contemplate, admire, and meditate upon - is the unending expanse of water. 

The light was too poor at Sifah to take pictures and do justice to the beach so I would like to share pictures from a new beach that I discovered a while back. 

Sunlight strewn beach...

Sky meeting sea and rocks

Mercurial waters...

Jabal Shams: A Palette of Neutrals

"The Poet used to say that we all have a particular topography in which we feel ourselves at home, though not all of us are fortunate enough to find the landscape which makes us so aware of that thing called 'the soul.' It is mountains for some, deserts for other, wide open plains for the most obvious in our midst. But you and I, Aasmaani, he'd tell me, we are creatures of water."

Broken Verses (2005), Kamila Shamsie

Living in Oman, I am truly fortunate to be in presence of incredibly varied terrain: the sea with its beautiful beaches, coves, and bays is just a half hour drive away while I see the sun set behind the incredible Hajar mountain-range every day. Yet, or perhaps, because of the abundance of beaches and mountains in my midst, I always wonder as to what terrain - desert, beaches, mountains - that I instinctively feel myself at home in.

A few days ago, my family and I visited Jabal Shams, the highest point in the Hajar mountain-range; as we navigated the extremely serpentine road leading up to the mountains, the temperatures falling as we left the plains, it really was like entering a whole new world, to employ a terrible cliche.

Stopping to glimpse what is dubbed as Oman's Grand Canyon, we were privy to a varied palette of neutral hues: duns, grays, olives, beiges, browns, and ochres. The shifting layers of clouds did leach the terrain of light, unfortunately, suddenly transforming a stunningly graduated mountainscape into a flat, monochrome space. It made me dwell more than ever upon how crucial the presence of plentiful - and clear - light is for painters and photographers, especially those attempting to make sense of the colors of the surrounding vistas.

In the late afternoon, when the sky had cleared up a bit, we went for a walk in Wadi Ghul, which forms the base of the Grand Canyon; the wadi [dry river beds] was an amazing study in as to how the powerful flow of water had sculpted, shaped, and teased the rocks into fantastical shapes and creations - and how the wind had further contributed towards chiseling and chipping away at the rock in the water's absence. The cracked plates of earth, frozen rock water-falls, and the curved mustard yellow rock over-hangings were evidence to the now invisible water and the audible wind's power.

Wadi Ghul

In midst of this neutral, camouflaged world, here is a bit of color I captured in the window of a wall(incidentally, this curious goat insisted on making its presence felt in every image taken there). I took this picture in a little cluster of houses, too small to be called a village even, on the edge of the mountain; yet, enterprising little children had set up stalls of rocks - I picked up one which resembled a cheesecake square - while there were several gardens around, trees laden with rosy pomegranates and garlic bulbs tied around its branches, the bulbs as big as the pomegranates themselves.

Curious goat stands guard

The shopaholic that I am, ha, I ended up buying iridescently hued key-ring and bracelet woven from goat-hair from a little stall run by a young village girl in front of the Grand Canyon. She told me that she wove her creations here in the stall itself, pulling out threads from a shopping bag jammed with supplies to show me. She cheerfully assisted me in as to which bracelet to buy, suggesting that I coordinate with the indigo blue kurta that I was wearing - but she was perfectly happy to approve the magenta, purple, and silver combination I eventually bought.

The key-ring made a brilliant contrast with the indomitable gray rock:

Instead of using it as a key-ring, I am instead thinking of using it as handbag accessory to enliven my handbags, which ironically enough happen to be in various neutral shades: I prefer to embrace color in my clothing, rather than accessories such as shoes or handbags. Incorporating this key-ring into a handbag will be my concession to color. Plus, inspired by these fashion-designer sisters, I would love to wear the bracelet with silver bracelets, the fabric and metal making a textural contrast with each other.

The day concluded with sunset, the sun playing a blush-hued hide and seek with the clouds before its blood red avatar vanished into the sky - and we were surrounded by darkness. I sensed, rather than saw, darkness after a long time, darkness becoming a palpable, tangible entity with a texture of its own.

Sunset at Jabal Shams

As we descended, I was still unsure whether I would call myself a creature of the mountains - it was decidedly a stark, severe, minimalist world - but there is no denying the fact that the spareness, the absence of - things - can be refreshing too at times. Yet, silently contemplating the sea of gray, ochre, and rust-hued rocks and then, at the ebulliently-colored bracelet around my wrist, I realised that I could not help but wish for less austerity in my surroundings. A little bit of maximalism works for me all the time...