The marvel that is Taj

Rajnish Wattas 

TAGORE’S poetic words, ‘The Taj Mahal…a solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time’, take on a tragic hue today. The monument of love was being razed to a dust bowl of political hate.

In fact, I see a tear drop rolling down its own face. As it laments over its destiny at the hands of its petty custodians, its  pure-white dome turns a dirty yellow.

It is said architecture is frozen music. And monuments emote more than any other form of buildings.   They  epitomise great human ideals  manifested as symbols, laden with  myriad meanings veiled in abstractions. The onlooker and the object engage in what the famous architect-planner of Chandigarh, Le Corbusier, called ‘visual acoustics’. He himself created powerful enigmas of architecture, resonating cosmic concepts expressed in raw concrete.

The Taj too transcends all human conflict spilt around it by political Lilliputians. It rises above all such mud as a pearl of human genius and endeavour. It floats above the Jamuna   as  an  apparition of the gods. Its shimmering images in the placid waters of the central canal that leads to it from the entrance portico add a reflective depth to its poignant message of love. Each onlooker can find his own answer in them.

Its landscape of the charbagh weaves an embroidered carpet of greenery, foliage of trees and motifs  for  the monument to sit on it in peace and repose. Its white marble glistens with the movement of the sun and takes on different hues depending on the hour of the day and the season. It mirrors the kaleidoscope of clouds floating in the firmament and reflects the moon beam and the twinkle of the stars at nightfall.

The Taj paints a different painting everyday, picking its colours from the pallet of nature and not of man. It sings by itself  with the trill of the fountains in the canal and the plaintive cry of the peacocks and the musical notes of the koels that perch on its mango trees in the orchards. During the torrential rains of barsaat as cascades of water from the heavens pour down its face—its dome, minarets and the cupolas get their annual wash, cleansed from any impurities that might have subdued their sheen.

The last time my wife and I visited  the Taj , it was for a rare sighting in full moon. There was pin-drop silence as everyone held their breath to savour the fleeting moment of such divine darshan. The monument’s silhouette etched in a diaphanous white in the ink-black darkness all around looked like a surreal sight suspended in time.

The Taj stood silent in time and space. It transcended all tears of the earth as a work of art.