Half-light in Fatehpur Sikri

of all the ghost cities of india, fatehpur sikri is perhaps the ghostliest, so pristine one may expect to witness the ablutions of emperor akbar or a tansen raga at any moment, cross paths with stern black-clad jesuits at the next corner or notice a harem giggle from behind the latticed screens. the superb dream of the emperor, built to be an unparallelled moghul capital, the city sustained communal life for no more than fifteen years. for sudden want of water, they say. or did it live too much too fast? this was after all the site of some unbridled pleasure-seeking, some intense hanking and panking, the setting of the most celebrated of all ecumenical extravaganzas and the stage of the feistiest music.

these days fatehpur remains a magnificent fossil, an insect trapped in ambar, laden with palaces and courtyards worn and torn by the march of time rather than human steps. too grand to be a ruin, too much of a ruin to be fully grand. it appears more like a capital under construction, prettying up to receive its glittering patron. a half-city half-lived. here is a pictorial half-portrait in half-light.