The Legend of the Taj Mahal
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Centuries ago there lived a king. His name was Shah Jahan. He was a good king, son of the Emperor Jahangir, the lover of wine and women.
Shah Jahan had many wives and many mistresses. The one he loved most and immortalized was:
MUMTAJ
She was beautiful and he loved her as no other man in history loved his wife.
When she died he was devastated. So in her memory he built the Taj Mahal to immortalize her. History says that it took 19 years to build the white marbled Taj. Shah Jahan almost emptied the state treasury building this great monument. He hired the best architects and artisans, some as far away as Persia. The domes and the minarets both externally and internally were studded with precious stones. The Taj looked most beautiful on a full moon night when seen from the banks of the Yamuna.
When Shah Jahan died, the Taj Mahal stood as the most beautiful monument ever built anywhere in the world. He had immortalized his wife Mumtaj.
Why no other man has ever built a monument as beautiful or better than the Taj for his wife, I can only hazard a guess. Most men got tired of their wives, else they died before their wives did. Maybe many beautiful wives nagged their husbands and lost out to the Taj.
Maybe no man ever loved his wife with the same intensity as Shah Jahan loved Mumtaj.
Who knows. Nevertheless, it was Shah Jahan’s desire that no monument should ever be built more beautiful or grander than the Taj Mahal. This he ensured in his lifetime by killing, blinding or maiming the Chief Architect, Ustad Ahmed Lahauri and many Master Artisans who built the Taj.
Some decades later a Moghul King attempted to build a Taj Mahal type of monument using black marble but failed to complete it.
One day his son Aurangzeb overthrew Shah Jahan and placed him under close custody at the Agra Fort, from where he could see the Taj in its entire splendor across the river Yamuna. In his bedroom, a small diamond, the size of your thumbnail, was placed on a wall, which reflected the image of the Taj Mahal perfectly for him to see. To this day you can place a mirror and see the same dramatic effect. The diamond has disappeared. Hence use a mirror.
LORD CURZON
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After the Mughals were defeated in wars by the British in the 17th/18th century, the Taj Mahal was ignored and the beautiful Mughal gardens withered away. But the monument stood unaffected. Some time in early 20th Century, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, began to restore the Taj. However, he had no idea what the Mughal gardens looked like in Shah Jahan’s time so a garden was made, modeled on British designs. Thanks to his efforts, the Taj Mahal became a world wide tourist attraction and was declared the 8th Wonder of the World. The other 7 were the Great Wall of China, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and 5 more. Readers can add these in the comment page.
The Post Independence Period
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Post Independence, the city of Agra slowly became an industrial city where thousands of iron smelting factories opened, spewing poisonous gases into the air. These gases contained sulfur dioxide, which settled on the white marble of the Taj Mahal and gave it a yellow tinge and started to corrode the marble causing pitting all over. The Mathura Oil Refinery added to the air pollution, which further damaged the Taj Mahal. Environmental lobbies succeeded in the Supreme Court of India and had all iron smelting factories shut down. Today the quality of air around the Taj is much improved. In a three-kilometer radius around the Taj, only electric motored vehicles are allowed to ply for tourists visiting the Taj.
Mr Narayan Murthy, Chairman of Infosys, states that the Taj is capable of generating revenues of $ 1 billion a year if marketed properly.
I have seen the Taj three times. I never seem to tire going to visit the Taj. The effect is electric. The sheer grandeur of this magnificent monument stuns all the senses.
On all my visits, I have seen many newly married couples at the Taj, holding hands and admiring the monument.
I can assure you, these couples will never divorce.