"A tear Drop on the Cheek of Time" is how Rabindranath Tagore described this monolithic structure. Literally meaning the 'Crown Palace' Taj Mahal is visited by millions of people from all over the world every year. Standing proudly on the banks o river Yamuna, it was built by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan in 1631 in the memory of his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, a Muslim Persian princess who died while after giving birth to their 14th child at a young age of 37. Her death crushed the emperor so much that all his hair and beard were said to have grown snow white in a few months. During their married life she had extracted four promises from the emperor, off which the foremost was to first build the Taj for her, thus resulting in this colossal monument of commitment and love.
The construction of Taj Mahal began in 1631 and is said to have taken 22 years for completion. Twenty thousand people were deployed to work on it. It was designed by the Iranian architect Istad Usa and till date continues to be an architectural marvel amidst other attributes. One of the Seven Wonders of the World, Taj is also listed under the World Heritage Site list. Taj Mahal rests on a high red sandstone base topped by a huge white marble terrace on which rests the famous dome flanked by four tapering minarets
As a monument of tribute to a beautiful woman, the Taj reveals its intricacies when one tours it at leisure. The rectangular base of Taj is in itself symbolic of the different sides from which to view a beautiful woman. The main gate is like a veil to a woman's face that should be lifted dexterously, gently and without haste on the wedding night. The grandiose structure works its magic of colours through various reflection techniques and transforms the view of the Taj. The Taj is pinkish in the morning, milky white in the evening and golden when the moon shines. These changes, they say, depict the different moods of woman.
The Taj narrates a story on its own. A tale on perpetual love, of a man who spent 18 years in isolation by just gazing the structure in a diamond, of a woman who lived years after her demise, and continues to live on in an immortal love story…
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