Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2012-29

---

IN THIS ISSUE

• Kate Brookfield describes the city of Agra in India
• Lyle Meeres introduces us to Newfoundland and Labrador
• Betty Audet shares some gentle humour
• Catherine Nesbitt forwards a story of a family dinner
• Catherine Green sends alternative meanings of common words
• Bruce Galway shares an old Indian´s philosophy
• Sites are recommended by Bruce Galway, Catherine Green, Catherine Nesbitt, Gerrit deLeeuw, Nevil Horsfall, and Pat Moore

Kate Brookfield continues her account of their travels in the Delhi Triangle:

AGRA, UTTAR PRADESH

On this trip we took a local bus to the city of Agra and arrived on Christmas Eve. We stayed in a hotel near the Taj Mahal. A young man from England was staying at the hotel. He was wearing a dhoti, a piece of cloth tied between the legs, such as we see on pictures of Mahatma Gandhi. He had lost everything he possessed when his backpack was stolen on the train from the south. This is quite a common story for tourists in India. When traveling by train, we always took the first class, where it was slightly safer. He was trying to get back to New Delhi to see about renewing his passport and air ticket back to the UK. I lent him some money to get back to Delhi, and later received a cheque from him for a lot more than I lent him. He was a teacher in the UK and really appreciated the help.

Again, as in Simla, there was no heating in the hotel and only a thin blanket. I hardly slept as I was so cold. I have spent other Christmas Eves in my life unable to sleep, but that was in childhood and not because I was too cold to sleep. I rose at sunrise, and as the rest of the family was still asleep, I decided to walk to the Taj Mahal. It was an amazing experience to see this magnificent shrine at sunrise when it was quiet, with hardly any tourists about. Although I have seen many pictures of the Taj Mahal, to be there in person and see it at sunrise was awe inspiring.

The traditional history states that this shrine was built by Shah Jahan, the same Moghul Emperor who built the Red Fort, as a Palace in Paradise for his third wife, Arjumand Banu Begum, or Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1629. The building was started in 1631 and not finished until 1653. I have seen discussions where some people believe it was originally a Hindu temple that Shah Jahan converted and covered with Arabic writings from the Koran. However, records show that that over 20,000 people worked on the construction and that the architect was from Iran. I am not qualified to take sides on such a complicated theory, so will stick to the traditional story. Suffice to say that by this time the Moghuls had been in India for many generations and had intermarried with the Hindu population. The Taj Mahal combines Moghul and Hindu symbols and is definitely and justifiably the pride of India.

I was surprised to see that the building was not white like the wedding cake image I expected, but pink, and in places gold, and half of the large central dome was bright red. This was due of course to the light of the rising sun. I read this is in a book I bought on the Taj: "Depending on what time of the day it is, and whether or not there´s a moon at night, Taj Mahal appears to be of different colour every time. Some even believe that this changing pattern of colours depict the different moods of a woman." I am not saying anything about this comment, except it amuses me and must have been written by a man!

When I returned later in the day with the family, it was very different, with hundreds of people swarming all over the place, and the building was dazzlingly white. I was glad my first visit was at this quiet time and that I saw this monument displaying those early morning colours.

I suddenly remembered that it was Christmas Day. This had to be the strangest Christmas day in my life, with no signs anywhere of the day so important in the Christian world: no extravagant coloured lights and decorated trees, no carol singing, no commercialism, except the guides wanting to take me on a conducted tour of the shrine. But at this hour of the morning, there were few of them. Here I was at a World Heritage site remembered around the world as the greatest monument built to commemorate a man´s love for his wife. I recommend a visit to this U-tube site to get the feeling of visiting the Taj Mahal:

Entrance to the grounds of the Taj Mahl is through high red sandstone arched gateway which is inscribed with Arabic, probably passages from the Koran. The Taj is straight ahead as you look through the gateway, with its reflection mirrored in the long rectangular pool. The whole scene is a picture of symmetry. You could draw a line from the pinnacle on the large onion-shaped dome of the central building through the middle of the pool and the left and right sides would be mirror images of each other. A row of small cedar trees runs on each side between the edges of the pool and the paths for pedestrians. The surrounding extensive gardens are divided into large squares, which in turn are subdivided into squares. All visitors must remove shoes before entering the shrine so at the foot of the shrine is an area where shoes are removed before going up the stairs to the entrance.

The monument sits on a platform of marble set on a base of red sandstone. There are four decorative minarets at each corner. They are not used as a call for prayer. The main building has fours small domes around a central large onion-shaped dome with a finian or pinnacle on the top showing a crescent moon. The moon is set so both points of the crescent point to the sky, towards heaven; the centre of the pinnacle through the moon makes a kind of trident. which is an important symbol of Shiva for Hindus. The top of the dome has lotus designs, another symbol important to Hindus. The whole structure combines Persian, Turkish, and Moghul architecture.

Inside the shrine, the visitor enters a large chamber which opens up to the top of the large dome. Patterned light shines through the finely cut marble screens of the walls on two large decorated tombs. These tombs are only for show. The real tombs for Mumtaz and Shah Jahan are in a room below in the basement area. Apparently, it was a common practice to have false tombs.

The beauty of the shrine from a distance is matched by the intricate details of the marble carvings and inlays of the walls and floors in close-up detail. Of course, most of the jewels and precious stones originally used are long gone, but restoration work has replaced them with glass substitutes, and there is still much to admire in the exquisite craftsmanship.

The Taj Mahal is situated beside the Yamana River, the same river that flows past the Red Fort in Delhi. A view of the Taj from the opposite side of the river shows that it is framed by two similar red sandstone mosques with white marble domes. Also on the opposite banks of the river is a smaller black Taj. Shah Jahan started this tomb intended to be his final resting place, but he was deposed by his son and it was never completed. It was at this Taj where Robert was chased by a pack of monkeys when he tried to approach them, and when he lost his desire for a pet a monkey. Thank goodness! That night, we moved to a better tourist hotel in the centre of town which was more comfortable.

Also in Agra is another Moghul Fort similar to the Red Fort, but much older. Like the Delhi Fort, it is an example of the might and wealth of the Moghul Empire. Again, I cannot describe all there is to see in Agra. It is an ancient city with thousands of years of history. Certainly, any visit to India should include this historic city.

To be continued.

ED. NOTE: Readers who are interested in the fascinating history of India may find a six-part YouTube presentation of The Story of India, a BBC TV documentary series, written and presented by historian Michael Wood, about the 10,000-year history of the Indian subcontinent. As in most of his documentaries, Wood explains historical events by travelling to the places where they took place, examining archeological and historical evidence at first hand, and interviewing historians and archaeologists, as well as chatting with local people:

Lyle Meeres regales us with the story of a recent trip:

FINDING NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR

When I retired, we enjoyed a trip to Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick. We travelled with friends, and as a group, felt that the crossing to Newfoundland was for another time. Years later we heard tha twe had missed a truly different part of the Maritimes. This year we chose to make up for that omission and set to tour Newfoundland and Labrador..

The clich?bout a trip to Newfoundland and Labrador is true: it is the people who make the trip special. On this 12-day tour, the clich?as doubly true: the people we met in Newfoundland and Labrador were often individualistic, friendly, and unabashedly direct, with a strong sense of humour. Secondly, the people we travelled with on our tour were wonderful company. Talking. What a great way for people who "come-from-away" to discover more about Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland only joined Canada in 1949, so it is new to many Canadians.

Life is touch on "The Rock." (click to enlarge)

We flew to Toronto to visit relatives, and then on to Deer Lake in Newfoundland. A taxi took us to Corner Brook to Glynmill Inn, which is a heritage building with Tudor-style characteristics. After a pleasant walk around Glynmill Inn Pond, we went to the hotel pub, where the bartender told us this is a tough place to garden because your shovel soon hits rock. The beer on tap was very expensive, so I guess he was trying to pay for topsoil. We were to notice that Newfoundland houses seemed to cling to the rock. Apparently no one would think of building a house on soil because it would be a waste.

The next morning we met our tour guide, Nina, and fellow tourists who had come by ferry overnight from Nova Scotia. My wife, Pat, and I had expected 25 people on the tour. There were only seven: two Americans (Norma and Jim), two Australians (Kath and John), Anna from Norway, and we´re Canadian. The bus driver, who was also the tour guide, was from Nova Scotia. Any more variety and we would have applied for U.N. membership.

The small group also meant that we had a small Mercedes bus that would seat about 12, so people were able to move about. We took turns on "moose watch," seated beside the driver.

The moose population is not native, but from four introduced from New Brunswick in 1904, the population has grown to 120,000 to 150,000. Moose are so numerous that they pose an ecological problem through their browsing. Most of our group really wanted to see moose; the driver wanted the moose to be seen so there was no collision. Estimates say there are some 700 moose-vehicle collisions per year. Passengers wanted to see a large set of antlers, but the moose shed these in winter and the new set doesn´t reach full size until August. We were touring in mid-June. Still, we saw seven or eight moose.

We saw very few cattle. In fact, it got so that instead of calling out, "Moose!" someone would call out, "Cow!" and that was only as we got close to St. John´s.

Gros Morne National Park (click to enlarge)

But I get ahead of myself. We drove to a viewpoint for a look at Corner Brook, a place noted for pulp and paper, and then on through a chunk of Gros Morne National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, where glaciers scraped the tops off mountains, and left some beautiful wilderness. The park is nearly split by Bonne Bay, so a boat tour is one way to see part of the beauty. For those with time, hiking is another possibility.

We made our way to the Port au Choix National Historic Site, where we watched a short film about the earlier people in the area: the Maritime Archaic Indians, Groswater and Dorset Paleoeskimos, and so-called recent Indians (ancestors of the Beothuk).

Along the road we saw small houses with boats pulled up on a series of logs, like a corduroy road. The shore lived up to Newfoundland´s nickname, "The Rock."

We were up early the next day to catch the ferry to Labrador. The crossing was somewhat rough and we faced a strong headwind, so we arrived nearly an hour late. The first impression was that there were fewer trees and more brush, lots of standing water, and streams that people visit to fish.

Red Bay is known for its early history of whaling ships. Whale oil was prized for lamp fuel, lubrication, paints, varnishes, and soap. At the Red Bay National Historic Site we watched a film on Basque whalers of the 1500s and we learned about raising a wreck from that era. This smaller whaling boat was preserved because it was under a larger galleon.

On a drive, we saw red sand and red rock, coloured due to iron content. When we arrived at a lighthouse, Pat bought a warm jacket because she was freezing.

We were up at 5:30 the next morning to catch the ferry back to Newfoundland. The waters were quieter and we saw smaller whales called "minkies" and we saw small icebergs.

We had a good stop at L´Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. "Anse" means "cove." The guide was a particularly personable fellow who walked us along a board walk to reconstructed Viking huts. There was a little stream along the way, and since the guide had grown up in the area, he was able to tell stories from personal experience. For instance, he remembered forking salmon out of the little brook and going to play in what they thought were Indian sites. The sites turned out to be Viking.

About a thousand years ago, a Norse expedition established turf-walled buildings as a base where they could repair their ships. The Vikings made nails here. When we went into one of the huts, a fellow in costume went into character and told us about life in the settlement.

Back on the road, we stopped for pictures of wood piles. One form was logs stacked in a teepee-shape for drying. The more common form was wood cut into short lengths to fit into stoves. Residents got a permit and cut firewood into stacks, which were labelled with the permit number. We had seen sleds near woodpiles and we had seen snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles beside many houses. These were used to haul the firewood to the homes.

As we drove along, we saw some homes with the front door anywhere from a foot to six feet in the air, with no steps. People used the kitchen door at the back. It was more friendly, I guess. The door with no steps became known as the "mother-in-law door." Recently, there was a tax advantage given to places with front steps, so the mother-in-law door is slowly disappearing.

We stopped at a tourist shop known as "Dark Tickle." It is known for products such as jam made from local berries. "Tickle" is what rocks just below the water can do to the bottom of a boat. We walked a board trail where a man of Norwegian extraction showed us the various kinds of berries such as partridgeberries, blueberries, and bakeapples.

The place had two large friendly black Newfoundland dogs. This breed has a history of courage. For instance, one jumped into the sea carrying a line which was used to rescue people from a 1919 wreck.

Once again our motel had a boil-water warning. Our bus carried bottled water, and some accommodations provided bottled water in the rooms.

That evening we enjoyed a "Viking Feast," where dinner theatre consisted of each long table creating a case against one table member. Our Norwegian lady, Anna, was accused of being a Viking spy. Since the judge was Viking, she was found innocent and our "lawyer" was guilty of false accusation and sentenced to serve as a slave to Anna for three days. Another table presented a case against the judge for misrepresenting history, claiming that the Irish had arrived before the Vikings. Need I say that the accusers were found guilty? Involving the audience was a wise move, I thought.

To be continued.

Betty Audet forwards these examples of

CLEAN HUMOUR

While I sat in the reception area of my doctor´s office, a woman rolled an elderly man in a wheelchair into the room. As she went to the receptionist´s desk, the man sat there, alone and silent. Just as I was thinking I should make small talk with him, a little boy slipped off his mother´s lap and walked over to the wheelchair. Placing his hand on the man´s, he said, "I know how you feel. My mom makes me ride in the stroller too."

As I was nursing my baby, my cousin´s six-year-old daughter, Krissy, came into the room. Never having seen anyone breast feed before, she was intrigued and full of all kinds of questions about what I was doing. After mulling over my answers, she remarked, "My mom has some of those, but I don´t think she knows how to use them."

Out bicycling one day with my eight-year-old granddaughter, Carolyn, I got a little wistful. "In ten years," I said, "you´ll want to be with your friends and you won´t go walking, biking, and swimming with me like you do now." Carolyn shrugged. "In ten years you´ll be too old to do all those things anyway."

Working as a paediatric nurse, I had the difficult assignment of giving immunization shots to children. One day I entered the examining room to give four-year-old Lizzie her needle. "No, no, no!" she screamed. "Lizzie," scolded her mother, "that´s not polite behaviour." With that, the girl yelled even louder, "No, thank you! No, thank you!"

On the way back from a Cub Scout meeting, my grandson innocently said to my son, "Dad, I know babies come from mommies´ tummies, but how do they get there in the first place?" After my son hemmed and hawed a while, my grandson finally spoke up in disgust, "You don´t have to make up something, Dad. It´s okay if you don´t know the answer."

Paul Newman founded the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for children stricken with cancer, AIDS, and blood diseases. One afternoon, he and his wife, Joanne Woodward, stopped by to have lunch with the kids. A counsellor at a nearby table, suspecting the young patients wouldn´t know Newman was a famous movie star, explained, "That´s the man who made this camp possible. Maybe you´ve seen his picture on his salad dressing bottle?" Blank stares. "Well, you´ve probably seen his face on his lemonade carton." An eight-year-old girl perked up. "How long was he missing?"

His wife´s graveside service was just barely finished when there was a massive clap of thunder, followed by a tremendous bolt of lightning, accompanied by even more thunder rumbling in the distance.

The little old man looked at the pastor and calmly said, "Well, she´s there."

Catherine Nesbitt sends this story of

THE FAMILY DINNER PARTY

A friend hosted a dinner party for family far and wide and everyone was encouraged to bring all their children as well.

All during the sit-down dinner, one four-year-old girl stared at the uncle sitting across from her.She could hardly eat her food for staring.

The uncle checked his tie, felt his face for food, patted his hair in place, but nothing stopped her from staring at him.

He tried his best to just ignore her but finally it was too much for him.

He finally asked her, "Why are you staring at me?"

Everyone at the table had noticed her behaviour and the table went quiet for her response.

The little girl said, "I´m just waiting to see how you drink like a fish."

Catherine Green forwards the winning submissions to a contest in which readers were asked to supply

ALTERNATE MEANINGS FOR COMMON WORDS

01. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

02. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

03. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

04. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

05. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

06. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

07. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

08. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

09. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Bruce Galway likes this explanation:

TWO WOLVES

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

"One is evil - It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

"The other is good - It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Bruce Galway sends a link to a video of a motorcycle-riding dog:

Bruce and Catherine Nesbitt both forward the URL for a video of a pickup truck saving a jet with crippled landing gear from crashing:

Catherine Green recommends this site for a video of a goose that adopted a retired man in a park:

Catherine Nesbitt suggests this video from Celtic Thunder of a rousing song. Check out the young guy on the left singing the bass part:

Catherine also sends this link to a video of three brothers from Kansas who took LMFAO´s "Sexy and I Know It," rewrote the lyrics, and created a fun music video to showcase their farming lifestyle. Now the Peterson brothers are the latest rural sensations on the web, attracting 2.8 million YouTube views in a week for their "I´m Farming and I Grow It" parody:

Gerrit deLeeuw forwards this link to the Mounties´ musical ride in the U.K. on the occasion of the Queen´s diamond jubilee:

Nevil Horsfall forwards the URL to a video of extraordinary pool shots:

Pat Moore sends a link to a video of the Kermodi bears, or spirit bears, which are very rare. When she lived in Stewart, B.C., they saw two of the bears, though some people who had lived in that area all their lives had never seen one:

To check out the features of the "freedictionary", which changes daily, go to