Taj Revisited

                                                                      Taj Re-visited

My recent visit to Taj rekindled memories of my last visit in the mid-‘60s of the last century. Five decades have passed in between.  Fifty odd years is a long time in one’s innings. It is a wonder that the Taj looks as grand and as majestic as it was fifty years ago, as it has been for the last three hundred and sixty two  years since its completion in 1653.

Considered as the “jewel of the Muslim art in India,” it stands as a monument of eternal love remarkable for its “poetic beauty, overwhelming passion and purity.” The poetic beauty can be seen in its remarkable symmetry and balance where the gigantic double dome stands , surrounded by four smaller domes and four minaret on each side in excellent proportion;  the overwhelming passion is expressed through the  smooth blending of brick and red sandstone(red- symbolizing passion and love)  with white marbles(white- symbolizing purity and peace)  of the marvelous structure that houses the tombs of the beloved couple- Emperor Shah Jahan and his Persian princess, Mumtaz Mahal;  and purity personified by the white architectural marvel. True to the Islamic tradition that forbids the etching of human as well as animal images, the exterior and the interior of the pure white building are etched with Islamic calligraphic writings from the Holy Koran that lend a spiritual aura to the aesthetic mausoleum  exalting  human passion to something akin to divine love.

When I first visited Taj Mahal, I was in my late twenties- a time for deep felt emotions unclouded by the fretful fever and stir of the world.  As Wordsworth wrote about his younger days when the French revolution began,

                         Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

                                                        But to be young was very heaven!

I distinctly recall the feelings of joy and excitement that I experienced at that time. It was possible to transpose one’s own pristine feelings to the feelings of ShahJahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal and experience love’s  intensity, fervency and power that made  the emperor  raise this monument as his signature tune to his lost wife. It is strange that both ShahJahan and Mumtaz were well past their romantic prime when Taj Mahal was conceived by Shah Jahan as his tomb tribute to Mumtaz who died while bearing his fourteenth child. Mumtaz made him promise not to go for a fourth wife and he fulfilled her wish by building the tomb which he designed to house the mortal remains both of himself and his wife.  For the young adults, this monument gives a sense of eternity as the present excitement and fullness of joy leave no scope for thoughts of mortality. The glory and freshness of life does not think of the possibility of the evanescence of that dream-like existence. No thoughts of fear and grief, no listlessness and torpor arise that would be at enmity with joy. It is at that time in their life when the present and only the present matters. Neither the past nor the uncertain future beckons them away from the “now’ and “here” of their experience. As a young adult, I viewed Taj as the epitome of love where the Emperor lay with his beloved Persian princess.

Five long decades thereafter, I revisited the Taj when I have moved into the last stage that life brings with it in its baggage. Though a septuagenarian, I am still on my feet and by God’s grace mentally and physically alert though less than before. Age has given me a variety of experiences that have clouded and mellowed the earlier romantic joy. Long years of experiencing the vicissitudes of life experiences have taught me that there is nothing eternal in life. All things, bright and beautiful have to come to an end. 

But revisiting the Taj now made me recognize the immortality of love captured through the immortality of art. The Taj seems to speak out: “men (and women) may come and go, I go on forever.” It  stands as a testimony to the immortality of art and love. It seems to have conferred eternity on the two souls that lie within the tomb. Shah Jahan and Mumtaz seem to speak through their vaults saying that even if life did not guarantee them eternity, death has assured them the eternity of their love. Their love legend is permanently etched in the mounument and every brick, sandstone and marble has chronicled it. Three hundred and sixty years later visitors to the Taj recall the names of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz and wonder at the passion that speaks from every pore of this beautiful tomb. Their love is immortal as it is the love of the immortal souls. The Taj seems to mock at Death saying,

                                      Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

                                      Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;

                                       For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

                                       Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill us.

                                        .  .  .

                                      One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

                                      And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. (John Donne)

 If Donne writes as a Christian poet, we also have Jalauddin Rumi, the mystical Sufi poet who says: “You left and I cried tears of blood. My sorrow grows. Its not just that You left. But when You left my eyes went with You. Now, how will I cry?”
I returned, more pensive than before with the comfort that art immortalizes love and love immortalizes art. This is what Keats says when he looks at the beautiful Grecian urn that holds the ashes of the dead that it shall remain, “the silent form” that says “beauty is truth, truth beauty –that is all you know on earth and all you need to know”.

My readers may think it sacrilegious if I were to add that from the Taj,  I went to Mathura the birthplace of Lord Krishna which is dedicated to the timeless devotion of Radha for her eternal lover Krishna. We have many legends such as that of Meera seeking eternity with Krishna, and Andal in the south seeking eternal union with Lord Ranganatha –real life stories of human love exalted to divine love between the Lord and his devotee. As I saw the beautiful carvings of Radha nd Krishna in Prem Mandir, I recognized the power of art to immortalize love and devotion. It is the same with Rumi’s poetry that is wide ranging and encompasses many different ideas but behind all the poetry the essential theme is the longing and searching for the union with the divine. He writes: “It is with all desires and affections, all loves and fondnesses that people have for every variety of thing – father, mother, heaven, earth, gardens, palaces, knowledge, things to eat and drink-  all these desires are truly the desire for God, and they are all veils covering humanity’s eyes.”

 I am no longer disturbed by the impending closure of my life on earth. I am at peace as I pen 

down my thoughts on the power of love and art to celebrate life, unhampered by thoughts about

 life’s final full stop.