After touring the Taj Mahal and the Fort, I was getting really hungry ... I was up since 4am and only had a breakfast on the airplane to Delhi. My touring of Agra was finishing up (it was now 5pm local time).
My guide asked if I needed to eat a little snack. "Oh yes," I said ... and I was taken to a little restaurant that had seating outside. The sun was setting so it was a bit cool ... it is at least 10-15 degrees cooler in Agra than it's been in Pune. Thankfully I was wearing a long sleeved shirt ... but still ... I just couldn't enjoy the food much because I was shivering.
Basically, everything in Agra caters to the tourist crowds ... and as you might imagine, the prices are all much higher than other places because of this. My dinner cost me 2-3 times what it would have in Delhi or Pune. It cost me 850 rupees for this "snack" which was more of a light dinner (thankfully) ... but still ... that's a lot of money. The same meal would have cost me around 375 rupees back in Pune. Oh well.
After the dinner, my guide then took me to an artisan's colony to see how they make the inlaid marble. I was invited to sit in the front of the building to watch the craftsmen do their magic. The leader of this particular enterprise sat with me and walked me through how they do it.
Step by step, he explained how an artist would draw a pattern on the marble in pencil lead then give it to the next artist. He sits at a grinding wheel (by the way ... I completely forgot to take a picture of all this ... oops!) and would chose a small semi-precious stone. The grinding wheel is situated on what I would describe as a loom kind of apparatus. The wheel is vertical and the artist would hold a stick with a rope in his right hand ... pulling and pushing the roped stick to make the wheel move. In his left hand he would finesse the semi-precious stone into the desired shape.
After making the shapes, this artist would arrange them into the pattern on the marble itself and put some glue on them to just hold them in place ... time for the next artist to take over.
The third artist would trace around the glued pieces of gemstones and then remove them from the marble. Now this artist would use a small chisel and basically scratch scratch scratch until he created the well into which the gemstones would ultimately live. The challenge here is not only to make the correct shaped pattern, he would have to be very careful about how deep he should go ... every gemstone must sit in its recessed area and be perfectly level with the top of the marble itself.
Once all of these steps are done, the gemstones would be placed into the marble; and they would be glued in with some "secret formula" resin that permanently fixes the gemstones into place. The marble is then polished and washed. Voila!
With everything done by hand, a coffee table sized marble piece could take anywhere from 4 months to 1 year to complete.
Okay ... after the demonstration I was whisked into their gallery to see all of the handiwork ... and with a hope, I am sure, that I would buy something. I did.
I bought a handcarved, solid marble jewelry box with a floral inlaid pattern. If this were bought in the US, expect to pay anywhere from $150 on up. (My cost in Agra was 1800 rupees, which is approximately $40).
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