We begin here in Helen’s journal as she is approaching the Taj Mahal. For those following, her letter home after the trip also detailed the Taj Mahal and its breathtaking glories, but the below adds elements and context and an intriguing scientist (and there’s even more that I’m leaving out if anyone wants to inquire).

To refresh, Helen is on 10-day shore leave from the ’round-the-world freight, and she is traveling with a few female civilian passengers from the boat. The passengers are, I believe, at least 25 years her senior (she is 34). And we don’t know much about them because she’s been dead set on making the engineers teach her how the boat goes vroom.

We had our first glimpse of it from the train. Dixit generously asked us to go with him. We sent our luggage to the hotel and went in his taxi.

Side note: What Helen did not mention letter home, which spoke of a series of comical-in-retrospect travel bloopers, is that she did get into a first class train car (in 1938, in India, 1st and 2nd class were vastly different).

And it was in first class that she met Dr. Dixit, a professor of physics from Gujarat College in India; he was swinging by the Taj Mahal on his way home from a conference in Calcutta. And they all joined forces.

It was just sunset when we stepped thru the red sandstone entrance gate and looked down the vista of trees and fountains to the Taj Mahal. 

Stopped to take two pictures, the 2nd a time exposure. The light faded with dull red across the sky. 

Side note: She took two pictures. How many would we take today? Of a sight that is life altering?

I have an 8×10 of one of the picture she mentions, but I cannot currently locate it. When I do I will post it.

By a dim pocket torch we climbed to the top of a minaret, stopping on each balcony to gasp at the ethereal beauty as the moon came up and cast a pale light on the marble.

She wouldn’t see the photos for months. And even when she had them, the ‘dull red across the sky…’ she’d have to describe, because of black and white film.

While writing all this, I have been picturing it in black and white (it was olden times), but I want you to envision the below in all the pretty colors:

We approached close enough to see that the pattern is inlay of lapis, jade, carnelian, black marble, in white marble. 

The workmanship is superb, the labor colossal.  

It was dark inside and we saw the tomb of Numtaz Mahal and of Shah Jaahn, her husband (who built the Taj), by the light of a flickering candle. 

The screens surrounding the tomb are marble carved in unbelievably lacy patterns. 

By a dim pocket torch we climbed to the top of a minaret, stopping on each balcony to gasp at the ethereal beauty as the moon came up and cast a pale light on the marble. 

We looked at it from the river side, and lay down on the marble base on the "moon-side". 

It took on the soft color of ivory, and the inlay looked like carving and the shadows are not black but gray and purple. 

Return to the gate where a great carved brass hanging lamp cast leafy shadows on the sandstone walls - and took our last look thru the arch of the gate. 

Words are less than useless. 

To the Imperial room, every convenience, quiet dining room with a delightful atmosphere and good food. Lovely shops in the hotel. Bot a white Kashmir shawl for a skirt.

Side note: The beauty of journals is the juxtaposition of the truly spectacular and the mundane. (Bot = bought. She uses her own shorthand at times.)

Sat. Jan 15: Mr. Dixit arranged with his driver to take us for the day for 15 Ru. Drive to Fatenour Sirri, 23 mi, passed several villages — every inch of land under cultivation.

Built by Akbar in 1569 A.D., a great wall, palaces, mosques, Turkish baths, the marble tomb of the Moslem saint Shaik Salim Chisti with its mother-of-pearl sarcophagus, the gate of victory 176 ft. high, and towering above the village outside the walls, the horse stables for 175 horses around an enormous span court. All in red sandstone marvelously carved, we were there 2 hours.

Back to the hotel, then to some shops — got a couple of pieces of marble inlay to remind me of the Taj. 

Had only half an hour to see the fort, could only glance at it, but it made an indelible impression. 

Dashed back for our baggage and on to the station for our train at 5:30 to Delhi. The ladies' compartment filled with three Indian women and 4 children, we went in with an English couple and their adorable little girl. 3 1/2 hours to Delhi, to Maiden's Hotel, dinner in a vast dining room at 10:30 p.m. 

Note to Mary on her birthday. 

Side note: The Maiden’s Hotel is still there and I want to go. And also, Mary was my grandmother, who was pregnant at the time with my mother, her second child, my mother.

India Part V coming up!