Monthly Archives: April 2013

The gate is located in Fatehpur Sikri. I am not sure if it is the oldest, but is one of the biggest we have ever seen. When we walked down, people glommed onto us and wouldn’t leave us alone trying to sell us all sorts of stuff. They all have the same story- they say they made it themselves, it is their family business, someone in their family is sick or dying….. A woman I met at a temple said sometimes you just want to stay in your hotel room all day because you haven’t got anymore fight left in you to say, “No, thanks.” “No!” “Please leave my family alone.” “Go away!” But we persevered and fought through each day and saw so much in India.

HEAVY, my friends! I will post more soon. In Katmandu right now. Wifi will be hard to access for a bit. Will get caught up soon when we leave third world living conditions!

They give you a little plastic hat to wear as you walk around the holy man. People are coming in and touching their babies heads to the tomb. Others leave flowers and money.

On the way to a mosque, the guy on the far right started yelling at him to leave- saying, “Boy! Why are you here? Leave!” The area is open to the public, but some of the men get protective and don’t want foreigners/women walking around. Jesse was already ahead- I told Maddux not to listen to the man and go. We continued on and saw what we wanted. I keep telling the kids not to let anyone bully them- that gives the bullies a sense of power.

It reminded me of Star Wars when Queen Amidala was at the Congress of the Republic- except this was on a much smaller scale and none of the balconies moved. There was a central area for the ruler, then offshoots for other politicians.

Akbar was quite the lady’s man. Legend has it, he had hundreds of wives and concubines of different faiths. They would be sitting in a courtyard area and he would look out from his big bed and tell his men which woman he wanted to spend the night with. There were privacy walls so none of the women would get jealous- how nice of him! Ha
Incidentally, out of all these ladies- he only got three pregnant. One was the Hindu wife, which he rewarded with a very elaborate temple to live in because she gave him his first son. The other two were concubines. Conspiracy theorists believe that he may not have been able to produce children so maybe the women had their own fella on the side. Paternity tests were not available back then, so we’ll never know.
Two of the photos are of the women’s pool where they would lounge around waiting to be “chosen.” They even had a beauty parlor to up their chances. The way I look lately, King Akbar would probably ask me to leave and never return! The other photo is of a painting of Akbar. In a lot of these places, there is no money for art conservation, so what you’re looking at is the real deal. Pretty cool.

Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbár, also known as Akbar the Great (October 15, 1542 – October 27, 1605) was the ruler of the Moghul Empire from the time of his accession in 1556 until 1605. He is considered the greatest of the Moghul emperors in terms of his military conquests. He is best known for his vision of an empire as an interfaith community—a view quite exceptional for his time. Although a pious Muslim, he believed that truth underlies all religions and pioneered inter-religious collaboration through his discussions with religious scholars, his promotion of the unity of religious truth, and through his own inter-cultural marriages.
Unfortunately, his enlightened policies were short-lived, to be reversed by his successor. Bummer!
These are pictures of some of the grounds where to kill criminals, they would have an elephant repeatedly step on the accused. Ouch! The stage where Maddux is singing is actually where women would dance and sing to entertain anyone at Fatehpur Sikri.