India readied for President Trump’s visit by sprucing up certain areas, including cleaning graves at Taj Mahal for first time in 300 years in the wake of President Donald Trump and his entourage visiting the country.
Efforts include building a wall to hide slum neighborhoods in Ahmedabad and cleaning grave sites at the Taj Mahal for the first time in 300 years.
The cleanup includes a new layer of clay followed by a wash with distilled water on two replicas of graves at India’s most famous monument. The actual graves of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal are in a chamber below the replicas.
The Indian Express reported on the project:
The clay pack is originally inspired from a traditional face pack Indian women apply to appear fairer. The Taj Mahal itself has been cleaned with a clay pack treatment five times, but the replicas of the graves were not cleaned.
The original Taj Mahal graves are only opened to the public for three days a year, to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Shah Jahan, also known as Urs. Yakub Habeebuddin Tucy, who claims to descend from Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor, also visits the graves to affirm his lineage to the Mughals.
The chandelier above the graves is also being cleaned with tamarind water. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which is undertaking this project, is to clean the entire monument to remove dark spots on walls and floors.
Work crews have also replenished the Yamuna River that lies behind the Taj Mahal with an additional 17 million liters of water put into the parched site.
Officials also deployed large monkeys to scare off the smaller monkeys that might have tired to engage with Trump and his entourage.
Aside from building a wall to hide the slums, India Express reported the government made some 200 slum-dwellers move out of a plot of land they have inhabited for two decades, the newspaper reported.
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