Agra, or Akbarabad as it was once called, brings to the mind of a discerning traveller the image of the Taj Mahal. While there's so much more to the city, the marble mausoleum is all that is needed to stand for the idea of India. Once inside its airy compound, visitors jostle to find the perfect corner for pictures or space to sit in the shade of the arches as the summer sun bears down.
Taj Mahal, the symbol of art elevated, is a song of eternal love. Mughals, with their innumerable monuments, wrote love letters to architecture and left Agra with memories that continue to trickle in crafts that have put the city on the world map. One of them is Parchin Kari or Pachhikari.
Parchin Kari is the art of inlaying colored or semi-precious stones into a stone base, often in geometric or flower patterns. In the walls of the Taj Mahal, the semi-precious stones glisten against the white surface of the marble, inspiring a generation of craftsmen that continue to practice the art in the bylanes of Agra and Fatehpur Sikri.
Believed to have originated in ancient Rome, the craft soon began to appear in church architecture. The art of Pietra Dura, as it was called in Italy, was brought to India in the 17th century by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan when he commissioned the Taj Mahal and brought experts from Persia, introducing the art of inlay carving and use of semi-precious stone in marble for the first time. The Parchinkari craftsmen of Agra are believed to be descendants of the same craftsmen who built the Taj Mahal.
