A few weeks ago I made my second visit to Agra, where I snapped this picture of the Taj Mahal. Most people guess that it is a palace fit for a king. While it is grand, and a king and his queen are there, a palace it isn't. Actually, the Taj Mahal was a mausoleum, for the favorite wife of Shah Jahan. She made him promise never to remarry, and he didn't. Instead, he spent the next 17 years building this monument in which to lay her body. It is perfectly symmetrical in every detail--except one.
You see, Shah Jahan nearly bankrupted the country building this tribute to his beloved, and when he began construction on the opposite side of the river of an identical "black Taj" that would be his final resting place, his son and crown prince had seen enough. He deposed his father, kept him under house arrest for the rest of his life, and when he died, buried him to the right of his wife's body--making Shah Jahan's resting place the one blot on the otherwise perfect symmetry of the structure and court.
Some consider the Taj Mahal as the greatest tribute to love. But its story is one laced with sorrow and death, the frustration of plans, and family betrayal. Not exactly the fruits of love we want to celebrate.
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