AAH TAAJ !!

Dear Friends,
Its been four months in Agra and I still havnt seen the Tajmahal. Well,well...before you condemn me as a workaholic allow me to share with you the fact that I DID TRY TO SEE THE TAJ. However, the experience was so frightening that I havn't since then tried to repeat the feat of valor.
Swati (my wife) and I went to savor the beauty of the architectural marvel on a holiday when, by chance, we had the day to ourselves. Just as soon as we got down from the car, we were surrounded by men brandishing all sorts of identitiy cards with 'guide' written on them. Each one of them , without exception offered to get us inside the gates of the TajMahal complex without having to stand in a queue. We, of course, turned down the offers and proceeded to enter the gate. Immediately, a gang of rickshawpullers descended upon us offering to take us to the ticket window for a fee. Well, more out of desperation to get out of the crowd of 'guides' and less out of need, we got on a rickshaw. The rickshawpuller proceeded to take us, not to the ticket window, but to a market known as 'meena baazar' from where he wanted us to purchase some artefacts from a shop he was recommending. We refused to oblige and proceeded to walk towards the ticket window. However, before we actually reached there, we were once again intercepted by a gang of 'guides' who, instead of offering us a guided tour of the Taj, were all offering to take us inside without us having to stand in a queue (which incidentally was long enough to be intimidating). By this time I was suitably irritated by this total disregard for our privacy by the 'guides' who are actually called 'lapkas' in local terms. Our holiday mood having been spoilt by the 'lapkas' and having been suitable intimidated by the length of the queue in front of the ticket window and also at the entrance of the Taj Mahal complex, we decided to beat a hasty retreat. Just as we started on our way back, we were once again intercepted by a girl selling key rings, each having a sorry looking plastic replica of the Taj Mahal, enclosed in a plastic bubble filled with some sort of liquid with glittering particles. When we refused to buy it, she practically begged us to buy one. Since it was difficult to differentiate whether she was selling or begging, we bought one of those keyrings and started walking back to the main gate and our car.
The experience, to say the least, was nauseating. It was a sorry saga of how perhaps the best known and patronized tourist destination in India is being managed. Like everything else in India, for a fee paid to a 'lapka' you can break a queue and enter the complex like a VIP. What happens to the other hapless tourists in who don't have the money to pay to a 'lapka' and are forced to stand in queue is nobody's business. The whole place is like a fish-market and the atmosphere and people there are enough to unnerve and repulse a sensive tourist. I agree that the Taj Mahal receives huge numbers of visitors every day. But that is all the more a reason to develop facilities at the Monument that make the experience memorable for teh sundry tourist. Otherwise I am sure that most of the tourists will come out of the place saying not 'Wah Taaj' but 'Aah Taaj'!