Since my time in India, I’ve realized that experiencing a new country automatically shifts my perception, making everything, even the typical, seem different. I remember walking around Lodhi Gardens in the beginning of our stay in Delhi, mesmerized by the Bara Gumbad mosque and tomb and the Sheesh Gumbad. They sky above the structures seemed absolutely still, disturbed (or enhanced?) only by the floating hawks against the muddy blue. I felt as if I had travelled into a photograph; the sights and experience something I had never encountered before. Even the grass under my feet looked different. Although I am seeing things in new ways, as we all are on this fantastic journey, a quote from our history professor, Sunil Kumar, sticks out to me: “Delhi should not remain an unfamiliar world.” As I ponder this statement in my blog post, I would like its readers to ponder it as well to find ways to constantly question things in order to make the unfamiliar familiar.

We are standing at the site of I’timād-ud-Daulah’s tomb in Agra. Beautiful pietra dura marble buildings reside in the center of the site on raised platforms, surrounded by large walls of red sandstone. Water trenches extend around the tombs, and tall trees offer umbrellas of shade. I’m aware that the Yamuna River is just yards away below the site, but I don’t scrutinize the larger space of the tomb’s surroundings. I step over some running water and meet a group of students standing by Sunil. I’m not sure how the conversation started, but at some point Sunil posed the question, “At what point did this Agra stop?” He pointed to the ornate structure just inches away from his fingertips and continued, “And turn into that?” His outstretched arm glided over and hovered just above the Yamuna, and I saw he was gesturing to the smoggy, congested city along the horizon. Someone mentioned modernization, but Sunil pressed for more thoughtfulness than that by suggesting (somewhat humorously, or maybe to start turning our brain gears) that perhaps there were just not enough important people to create embellished tombs for. Or, he posed again, had individuals forgotten their history and settled with the concept that India’s history is the present?

As I climbed back on our bus, I realized that even though we had exited the physical site, the words shared made an impression on me that I hadn’t experienced before. Sunil’s statements left me feeling uncertain about how I had been thinking about Delhi. Ever since that first meta-snapshot experience at Lodhi Gardens, I had been viewing all the monuments as singular entities with singular histories without questioning the larger context. I was living so much in the present of the architecture that I had forgotten to look over the river of my perception and see that, just like the smoke blanketed city, there is more to these locations that meets the eye, and always more questions to be asked.