Shah Jahan was a Mughal King who had three wives.
Among the three, it was the third wife he loved the most. His first two wives did not give him any children, but Mumtaj, the third wife, not only was she the most beautiful, she also gave him 14 children.
When Mumtaj died, Shah Jahan decided to erect a monument of his love for her and built the magnificent white Taj Mahal in pure marble, a perfect symmetrical structure that is truly fit for a dearly beloved queen.
In there his queen will lay to rest and her beauty to be admired by the world for years to come.
It took twenty two years and the people’s money to build it.
When at last the Taj Mahal was finished standing tall in the heart of Agra, Shah Jahan so admired his work that he wanted to build a black version of it for himself, to be built right across the river that flows from Delhi and in perfect symmetry to be face to face with the white Taj Mahal.
One of his sons however, successfully overthrew him and physically stopped him from further spending the people’s money for another tomb replicating the one already standing tall. Shah Jahan was then put to prison in Agra Fort and from a small cell through a small window; he spent the remaining 8 years of his life looking at his Taj Mahal.
I am sure that if you google the story of the Taj Mahal, it will provide you with details and perhaps better words describing it. I am only retelling it as it was told to us by our tour guide when we visited one of the world’s greatest man-made structures. Foreign and local tourists armed with cameras flock to the City of Agra in India to see this monument. As most tourists, I did my fair share of touristy things too and did the Princess Diana pose. I went to Agra however, not just to take photos but to actually see for myself how magnificent and beautiful a man’s love for a woman can be immortalized.
For many who have seen the Taj Mahal, it was a perfect symmetrical structure, and I will only confuse myself with architectural and engineering technical terms as to why it is so. But what I saw was a love story and what a sad love story it was indeed. Upon exiting the Taj, we saw two identical tombs that appear to stand guards at the gate of the great white tomb. They were in fact, the resting grounds for the first two wives of Shah Jahan. They stood like bridesmaids to one beautiful bride that stole their husband’s heart.
The Taj Mahal hides in the heart of Agra and its color changes from sunrise to sunset. It stands beautifully right in the middle of a gorgeous garden and yet, as I stood still facing it from the eastern gate amidst the crowd for the very first time, lonely is the word I could think of to describe it. The Taj Mahal is lonely. She seems restful and quiet but lonely. As we took a view of the place where the foundation of the supposed black Taj Mahal was to be laid, I could not help but think that if Shah Jahan was not imprisoned and the construction of the black version was not halted, maybe the magnificent white Taj Mahal would not seem lonely.
The story of the Taj Mahal ironically is a backdrop to the still existing tradition and culture of India where a woman is but a man’s wife, a sister or a mother, not to be known as herself, where her name is to be known as her husband’s name when she is married. A woman’s desire to be a wife is measured by the amount of dowry her family can afford to offer. A village woman’s success is dependent on a husband she can find to marry her. This is a society where baby boys are preferred over baby girls during pregnancy and after. These are facts we can find, or we were told, or we may have read about, but Taj Mahal tells me something else.
It is a monument of love. It knocks the anvil of a man’s devotion for a woman immortalized for the naked eye to appreciate from one generation after another. A proof that somehow, there was once this King who ruled a nation and built this one magnificent structure to tell the world for years to come, that he lived to love a woman and her name was Mumtaj Mahal.
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