Big ‘stinkin white elephants
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Words by - Johnny Bang
India |
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We saw the Taj Mahal this morning. It was commissioned in 1632 by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his third and favourite wife. Yes it’s amazing, yes its beautiful architecture and landscape design, but I didn’t really like it.
To me all it does is prove that if you throw enough money at good architects you get a good building. Why, 400 odd years later we still honouring this Shah bloke for some white elephant he built for some dead bird while his people were probably starving? Also he didn’t design or engineer the place; he just threw money at it. Why does his name go down in history? What about all the slaves who died making it? Why aren’t we remembering the leaders or engineers that spent money on community infrastructure like sanitation, roads and hospitals? Because sanitation isn’t sexy; we want to celebrate big useless monuments. Anyway, rant over, we split Agra and headed for New Delhi.
I found a helmet place, but the helmets seemed to be of the same quality you would find in the Big W toy aisle, and while the Indian salesman assured me they were of the highest international standard (pointing to a counterfeit DOT certification), I decided to continue to chance it with the trusty old melon protector that has gotten me this far. I will replace it in the next town… For the rest of the afternoon we had the usual difficult task of finding a hotel in an Indian city that didn’t want to rip us of (It really is easier to camp in the bushes).
To me all it does is prove that if you throw enough money at good architects you get a good building. Why, 400 odd years later we still honouring this Shah bloke for some white elephant he built for some dead bird while his people were probably starving? Also he didn’t design or engineer the place; he just threw money at it. Why does his name go down in history? What about all the slaves who died making it? Why aren’t we remembering the leaders or engineers that spent money on community infrastructure like sanitation, roads and hospitals? Because sanitation isn’t sexy; we want to celebrate big useless monuments. Anyway, rant over, we split Agra and headed for New Delhi.
I found a helmet place, but the helmets seemed to be of the same quality you would find in the Big W toy aisle, and while the Indian salesman assured me they were of the highest international standard (pointing to a counterfeit DOT certification), I decided to continue to chance it with the trusty old melon protector that has gotten me this far. I will replace it in the next town… For the rest of the afternoon we had the usual difficult task of finding a hotel in an Indian city that didn’t want to rip us of (It really is easier to camp in the bushes).
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