A few years ago, my family and I visited the Taj Mahal. It was an exciting trip, a chance to see a famous historical landmark that has fascinated many. Upon arrival, and after the security check, I was finally able to glimpse the white walls of the Taj. To my eye, the edifice was beautiful, glimmering in the sunlight, set against a clear blue sky. Cool air marked the interiors, and a soft wind rustled through.
What spoilt the reverie, however, was not the surroundings themselves. They remained clean, the gardens well-tended, the area swept free of debris. What marred the serenity of the locale were the visitors. Some folks had evidently decided that speaking loudly, indoors and outdoors, was the norm, perhaps to shatter the silence. A family of four, two children included, had set up an elaborate picnic just outside. Candy wrappers and biscuit crumbs littered the ground, and a paper cup flew with the breeze. Granted, this was some years ago, but the memory of it is pretty jarring.
Around the same time was a visit to the Qutub Minar complex. For one, I do not see the romance of carving dubious hearts and names on the walls of monuments. And yet, I saw hundreds of them on the worn stone. A giggly couple was at work until security caught up with them. Again, scraps of food and plastic wrappers were carelessly tossed aside. A young man climbed atop a fallen edifice for a photo, and was forced to scramble down under the glare of the guard. Meaningless, infuriating graffiti decorated many inches of bare wall.
A visit to a step well in Rajasthan was equally appalling. The stagnant water at the bottom was choked with grime and rubbish. Even the birds watched in silence from the surrounding walls, amazed, perhaps, at the audacious, capricious nature of the human mind.
For a country whose culture spans millennia, the callous nature of some of her people boggles the mind. Perhaps the land herself weeps at the piling rubbish heaps on roadsides, at the eye-searing graffiti on walls, at the open drains that overflow with middling rain. Or the empty trash bins with the rubbish scattered all around it, instead of in it.
Such wanton disregard for one’s own heritage seeps into the monuments as well. A certain palace, touted as a major tourist attraction, was streaked with grime and litter, and lurid paan stains on the greasy walls when I saw it. Cobwebs matted the corners, illumined by a smoky light bulb. No one I saw seemed concerned by the surrounding mess. They were, instead, merrily engaged in messing it up further. Dust and mud seeped into stairways and made them slippery.
The silence in such structures is deafening, silence that rises above the chatter and the laughter of visitors. The cry of birds and animals themselves seems no more than a lingering echo or a whisper of dismay.
Perhaps the very stones weep.