F for Fatehpur Sikri


Fatehpur Sikri  is a city and a municipal board in Agra district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. The city was founded in 1569 by the Mughal emperor Akbar, and served as the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1571 to 1585.


I had visited Fatehpur Sikri when I was nine and a half years old. It was the month of January and our family was visiting Delhi for my younger maternal uncle's engagement ceremony. Fatehpur Sikri was part of the day long tour we took to Agra which covered Mathura, Brindavan and Fathepur Sikri also.

As I was quite young, I don't remember much of Fatehpur Sikri except the ruins of a fort we visited and the mighty langurs with their long tails (Gray langur or Hanuman langur) there. There was a good population of the langurs there and the ruins were full of their urine and feces. Back then the maintenance was not good, also I don't know how it is now.
The famous Buland Darwaza of Fatehpur Sikri
In the ruins, there were vendors selling various snacks and we bought some roasted black grams to munch. The langurs there were accustomed to humans and roamed about without any apprehension. One of them was sitting near us hoping to get a share of the snacks. My uncle's fiancee (now my aunt) had also accompanied us. Uncle was in a playful mood and he decided to tease one of the langurs.Uncle hid one black gram in one of his fists and put forward both his closed fists towards the langur to choose. The langur chose the wrong fist and it was disappointed to see the empty hand. We all had a good laugh at it. This continued for several times in a row, and Uncle did not put any grams in his fist to joke with the poor langur. At last it grew really annoyed and angry and slapped uncle crisply! We all were dumbfounded. But we also learned our lesson. Be it humans or animals, jokes have their limits.

I am taking part in the Blogging From A to Z Challenge [April 2014].

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