Scott is working on his second soft serve cone. I’m polishing off my second coke. And Catherine? She’s got her own menu favorite too.
We are now well into Hour #2 at McDonald’s. At Scott’s gentle persistence, we investigated two locations for our fast food fix. When I first heard that Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, had two McDonald’s — well, I was skeptical. Did the autorickshaw driver already know that the first McDonald’s had closed down? We may never know.
If it weren’t for the Taj Mahal and related palatial projects, Agra would just be a hot, dusty city with more than its share of noxious fumes. When I first arrive in Delhi back in late 2007, the capital city was suffering under a temporary air pollution peak. In the city of Agra, it is more like a plateau. A thick, hazy, smoky plateau.
On the ride into town from the train station, our young autorickshaw driver excitedly talks in Hindi about Mayawati, Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister. The state’s elected chief is a woman who hails from low-caste roots, and she is apparently in Agra for a couple of days. She’s here to dedicate a new center bearing the name of Dr. Ambedkar — the historic leader for many of India’s dalits (formerly “untouchables”).
Mayawati got international attention when she came to power through a political alliance of high-caste brahmins and low-caste dalits. International reporters didn’t really know what to make of it, but the headlines were good regardless. Today, many dalits can point to this head of an Indian state with a certain kind of pride.
But the nuts-and-bolts of good governance may still remain elusive. It would be unfair to blame Mayawati for Agra’s longstanding industrial air pollution. But one still wonders if the creeping threat of dirty air is something that leaders locally just accept. In contrast to Los Angeles’ smog alert days, this seems like a full-scale respiratory emergency.
So after a morning spent tromping around the Taj Mahal, we have now escaped to the air-conditioned confines of McDonald’s. The air is clean. There are no merchants asking us to buy Taj-shaped trinkets. There are no autorickshaw drivers insisting that they have a “better” hotel for us — even though they probably do.
Just a lot of shiny, fashionably dressed, upper-income Agra residents getting their McAloo Tikki fix.
