Edward Lear, who wrote a lot of sense and some nonsense, declared after visiting the Taj: “Henceforth let the inhabitants of the world be divided in two classes—them as has seen the Taj Mahal and them as hasn’t.” In these times of strife over mandirs, masjids, maqbaras and mausoleums, we may amend it as ‘those who love the Taj and those who don’t’.
In the latter group fall Aurangzeb, Aldous Huxley, Azam Khan and a few Sanghis like Sangeet Som and Vinay Katiyar. They all dislike the Taj.
Som, a BJP member of the UP Assembly, hates the Taj because he thinks it was built by a man who jailed his father. Som got his history wrong. The whole world knows that Shah Jahan was the victim—and not the perpetrator—of a familial atrocity committed by his son Aurangzeb.
Aurangzeb was a fiend of faith, but let’s be fair—he didn’t particularly despise the Taj. (Once it was built, he grudgingly spent on its upkeep.) The prince of parsimony didn’t like his father spending money on building tombs and towers of opulence. When his own beloved wife died, Aurangzeb spent from his own pocket to build a maqbara in Aurangabad. If you ask me, it looks like the Taj on a poverty diet.
This story is from the November 05, 2017 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 05, 2017 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Divides And Dividends
Contrasting narratives on the scrapping of Article 370 define the elections in Jammu and Kashmir
Playing it cool
Everybody knows what 420 means in the Indian context. But in American parlance it is something very different: four-twenty or 4/20 or April 20 denotes cannabis celebration; its cultural references are rooted in the hippie culture of the 1960s and 1970s.
The heroine's new clothes
Who else but Sanjay Leela Bhansali could bring on a wardrobe reset like the one in his just-dropped period piece—an eight-part Netflix series called Heeramandi?
AI & I
Through her book Code Dependent—shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction—Madhumita Murgia gives voice to the voiceless multitudes impacted by artificial intelligence
Untold tales from war
Camouflaged is a collection of 10 deeply researched stories, ranging from the world wars to the 26/11 terror attacks
Hair force
Sheetal Mallar, in her photobook Braided, uses hair as a metaphor to tell a story that is personal yet universal
THE WHITE TIGER GAVE ME CONFIDENCE IN MY ABILITIES
The first time Adarsh Gourav made an impression was in Ramin Bahrani's 2021 film The White Tiger, a gripping adaptation of Aravind Adiga's Booker-winning novel.
The art of political protest
The past doesn’t always remain in the past. Sometimes, it emerges in the present, reminding us about the universality and repetitiveness of the human experience. Berlin’s George Grosz Museum, a tiny gem, is a startling reminder that modern political and social ills are not modern. Grosz lived through World Wars I and II, shining a torch into the heart of darkness in high-ranking men and women—who were complicit in the collapse of the world as they knew it.
REFUELLING DYING SATELLITES
A Chennai company is making waves in the world of space tech startups
DIVERSITY IN UNITY
THE SOUTH ASIAN COMMUNITY IN THE US HAS SEVERAL THINGS IN COMMON, BUT WHEN IT COMES TO THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS, THERE ARE WIDELY DIFFERING OPINIONS AND FEELINGS