"Bhaisaahab, kya hum angrez lagta hai"

Dear Mausam,
Itz been a while since I have been planning to travel to Agra and number of places in and around Delhi. I wanted to undertake this journey just as a toursit does.
Sanju asked me to pick some books for him from Nayi Sadak and while on my way there I chanced upon crossing Meena Bazaar and Jama Masjid, I couldn’t resist the temptation of visiting these two historical places right away. It was my first visit to a "Masjid", I realized this, only when I actually went inside. On all earlier occasions when I thought that I have been to Masjid then I was actually in a Dargah! And you know how I found that out??? Well In a Dargah we pray or bow in front of "something" (I dont know what that something is, but that something is always wrapped in a green cloth), but in case of a Masjid therez nothing physical to pray to! We just pray towards a Wall, a big long high wall. I never knew this was how Muslims pray. It felt too awkward.
The same evening I made a program of visiting Agra the next day. I asked Dheeraj and he volunteered to accompany me on my visit. The next morning though we reached the railway station half hour in advance but we still missed the train coz the queue intending to buy the ticket was way too long and by the time we got a chance to buy the ticket, the train had go went gone!
Fortunately we were lucky to board the train which was running late by 5 hrs (We have nothing to complain as for us that train was right on time). We equipped ourselves with a dose of Newspapers and magazines to see us thru our journey, but we could hardly read it coz both of us were busy talking about a wide range of topics- Indian Politics, the culture of Indian army, various hobbies that people have, body language and a whole gamut of topics. Dheeraj is an interesting conversationalist and he can talk about a wide range of topics and can even hold his own. No wonder time just flew. As soon as we reached the Agra railway station we booked our return ticket for the same evening. (Didn’t wanted to test our luck again!)
A pre-paid auto ride took us to a restaurant and then we were on our way to the Taj Mahal. As soon as we reached we saw a flood of touts, foreign tourists and high level of security. There were a number of tourists who had come in a group and the groups instructor was also a guide for them.
There was one particular group of people which comprised mainly of westerners. (Almost all of them were fair-skinned, some were blonde) The only people who didn’t looked westerners was a family which looked of Indian descent.( I figured out they were Indians by their skin color otherwise everything associated with them suggested that they were completely Americanized. (They looked the typical ABCD types- complaining about everything under the sun-It is so Hot here? Why can’t I carry my cellphone inside the Taj Mahal complex? We should’nt buy anything from here? I managed to find about all these aspects as I was standing behind them in the queue to deposit bags before entering the Taj. That family did everything to prove themselves as India-haters.
At the Taj there are 2 kind of tickets,for Indians it costs Rs 20 and for foreigners the ticket costs Rs 750. The pseudo Americans bought the ticket meant for Indians. As soon as they entered the Taj complex an official came up and asked them that they will have to buy the ticket meant for foreigners. The lady who all this time was condemning India suddenly said “ Bhai saahab kya hum angrez lagta hain”. What the official said in reply was a masterstroke and caught everybody by surprise.”Haan aap angrej ho, aur aap jaise logon ko yeh baat bataana mera roj ka kaam hai!”.The lady was speechless and didn’t commented anything, she and her family were completely embarrassed. They started murmuring after a while, itz another matter they still didn’t buy the 750 Rs ticket!
Saving money in any way possible, ridiculing condemning others comes naturally to us. When will we change, when will we start behaving like humans should??? Dishonesty is imbibed in us.
Anyway, The Taj Mahal was as spectacular as expected. We went to see the Agra Fort too, which was as beautiful as the Taj Mahal. The only negative was that the hot weather was a disappointment to an otherwise wonderful historical trip. I reached back in Delhi by 11 pm.

Regards,
Ajj Kaim