From Edavetti to Agra

I was feeling utterly dispirited a few days back. On such occasions, a visit to some forest lifts my mood. So I rang up old friend M and asked whether he would like to join me on a short trip to a place called Edavetti, some 15 km from my home. “A small forest,” I said. M is also a retiree like me who loves to go places. He said yes instantly.

Though the Kerala Forest Department has made an effort to convert a part of the forest into a tourist attraction of sorts, it doesn’t attract visitors at all. There was no one to walk on the narrow paths paved with tiles, apart from the two of us. We walked on until we reached the other end of the forest in a few minutes. In fact, it wasn’t a forest. It was just a copse, some 20 acres. All around it were houses belonging to private families.

Below are some pictures from the “forest.”

1. Thumba flowers (leucas aspera) which have disappeared from Kerala's regular landscapes. They were an integral part of the state's legends and songs as well as celbrations like Onam.

2. The board says 'Medicinal Plant Garden'. There is a similar board nearby which says 'Butterfly Garden'. There are neither medicinal plants nor butterflies in the place.

3&4. Neglect.

5&6. Paths

M told me a story as we sat on a deserted bench by the side of the path. I’m adapting it below. It brought some cheer to my gloomy soul.

A student was asked to write an essay on the Taj Mahal. And the result went something like this. The Taj Mahal is one of the seven wonders of the world and also one of the main reasons foreigners come to India, apart from yoga and potholes. It was built by Shahjahan in memory of his best wife who unfortunately died, probably because there were no hospitals in Agra at that time.

Today hospitals are a huge industry in India, one of the most profitable. Then followed a long paragraph on the condition of the medical sector in India. The student also made a snide reference to Covid-19 and subsequent lockout which was meant to keep people quarantined at home but brought them out on the highways in thousands. He did not forget to mention that the vaccination certificates carried the photo of our beloved Prime Minister Modi.

Modiji is an efficient builder, the essay goes on. He has built more structures than Shahjahan or any other Mughal. He will be known as the greatest emperor of India. The Taj Mahal took 22 years to build whereas Modiji constructed the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya in less than 3 years. And Ram Mandir is much bigger than the Taj Mahal.

Our history book says that the Taj Mahal was originally a Shiva Temple called Tejo Mahalaya. Maybe, Shahjahan liked Lord Shiva and that’s why he chose the place for his best wife to rest. Also he put up a tall dome on it that looks like a Shivling if you look at it through Google Earth.

Then the essay moved on to the benefits of Google Earth, Google Map, and Google Search, before returning to the topic.

The Taj Mahal changes colour during the day – pinkish in morning, white in evening, and golden at night. This shows that it has emotions. If you look at it with love, it shines even brighter. But the Archaeological Survey of India is not happy with this situation because they don’t want Indians to love the Taj.

Inside the Taj, there are two tombs which are now empty because the British secretly took away the bodies just like they did the Peacock Throne. Veer Savarkar fought with the British to bring these precious things back to India but he was thrown in Kaala Paani prison.

Modiji recently got some laser lights put up on the Taj. Inaugurating the lights, Modiji gave an emotional speech on ‘Make in India.’ The chaiwallahs in Agra made a lot of money that day. So, the Taj Mahal is not only a monument but also contributes to the country’s GDP. We can say it is also a monument to GDP.