After another mind numbing race back to the coach on the battery bus it was back to the hotel for another superb buffet lunch. I went to town a bit trying as many dishes as I could and thought for a while that I had overdone the spices but no adverse outcomes.
So lunch over it was back on the coach for a visit to the Red Fort at Agra. This is a huge complex built in red sandstone. It was begun by Akbar the Great and extended and changed by Shah Jahan (Akbar’s grandson) and even by his son Aurangzeb who proved to be the first of a series of incompetent Mogul rulers that eventually led to the decline of the Mogul Empire. In a frenzy of cruelty Aurangzeb imprisoned Shah Jahan in 1658 in the Red Fort for seven years until his death in 1666. You can still see, but I didn’t, the prism that reflected the Taj and lightened the final years of its builder. Shah Jahan it is said died in the arms of his daughter gazing across the Jamuna River to the Taj and the grave of his most beloved consort (and not ‘consert’ as spelt in my Indian guide book!) The photo will give you a feel for what he saw.
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