Images of India

I’ve traveled to India four times since the spring of 2006.  Below are just a few of the many photos I’ve taken there.  I hope you’ll find some pleasing or interesting.  I think a few have an appealing sweetness to them.  I also hope some may offer you a new perspective on and of India.  Please contact me by email if you wish to use or otherwise re-publish any of these images (jurisbengoshi@yahoo.com).

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Children Playing. Mumbai. 2008.

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Man at Pune Train Station. 2006.

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Honeymoon Couple. On the train to Aurangabad. 2006.

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Woman with her hand “on” the Taj Mahal. Agra. 2007.

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Riding with Ganesh. Tamil Nadu, India. 2006.

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Morning on the Beach. Near Mahabalipuram. 2006.

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Man at Gateway of India, Taj Mahal Hotel. Mumbai. 2008.

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View from the Taj Mahal, Agra. 2007.

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Village Market. Along the road, South India. 2006.

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Strictly Enforced. Just behind the Taj Hotel. Mumbai. 2008.

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Vishnu/Narasimha disembows demon. Hoysala Temple. Hassan. 2006.

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Goat under the Big Rock. Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram). 2006.

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Between Agra & Fatehpur Sikri. Fellow traveler gazes from van. 2007.

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Crawford Market Vendor. Mumbai. 2006.

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Shiva Temple. Badami. 2006.

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Street Cricket. Mumbai. 2008.

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Students at the Taj Mahal. 2007.

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Drying Clothes. Mumbai. 2008.

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Mumbai Financial District Skyline. 2007.

Note:  the image above is used in this poster by the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design, promoting a late-2011 study abroad trip to India.

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Little Girl with Ice Cream. Hampi. 2006.

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Windows and Man. Mumbai. 2008.

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A couple blocks from Marine Drive. Mumbai. 2007.

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M o n u m e n t    t o    L o v e

View of the Taj Mahal from Agra Fort. 2007.

It took the great Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan 22 years, from 1631 to 1653, to construct the Taj Mahal, a tribute to and tomb for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1630 at the age of 39.  In September 1657 Shah Jahan fell ill and in the wake of his incapacity one of his sons, Aurangzeb, deposed him from the Mughal throne and imprisoned Shah Jahan in the Great Agra Fort (covering 94 acres), which itself was constructed by Shah Jahan’s grandfather, the Emperor Akbar, along the Yamuna River during the 1560’s and ’70’s.  Shah Jahan lived out his final nine years as his son’s prisoner in the Agra Fort.

The photograph above is taken from one of Agra Fort’s terraces which offers a good and dreamlike view of the Taj Mahal, a little more than 1 and 1/2 miles away.  Shah Jahan no doubt stood in this very place hundreds or thousands of times during his years of captivity, looking down river to Mumtaz Mahal’s final resting place, shimmering in the distance.  He died in 1666.  Shah Jahan’s body was taken from the Agra Fort and laid beside his wife’s in the Taj Mahal.  Their bodies lay beside one another to this day.

A kindly tourist took this photo of me at the Taj Mahal in February 2007 . . .

At the Taj Mahal. 2007.

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  r r n

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