APTI, Day 16 – Agra, The Taj Mahal & The Red Fort
Despite all its physical grandeur, the Taj is, after all, a tomb. That diminishes it somehow for me. Temples are, or were, living places of worship; forts protected and sustained life and carved a place for themselves in history; the Taj is a grave. No one ever lived in the Taj Mahal, no battles were ever fought there; and the course of history was never altered by its construction.
Call it a monument to love, if you will, but I call it a monument to megalomania and narcissism, one man’s attempt to fend off mortality by building an edifice so grand that countless generations would speak his – and his wife’s – names. Remember, too, Mumtaz Mahal wasn’t Shah Jihan’s only wife; she was just his third, and favourite, wife.
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