The Taj Mahal: A Diamond Wrapped in a Filthy Rag

Let me ask you this: would you wrap the Hope Diamond in a filthy rag? Would you dress a beautiful woman in a burlap sack? Would you hang a Picasso in a broken, plastic frame? Okay, so that last one would be kind of a statement, but nonetheless....if you take a beautiful thing and encase it in filth, it remains beautiful but it displays a great lack of respect for said thing. So is Agra, the filthy, corrupt packaging that holds the Taj Mahal. The streets  overflow with garbage and cow dung resulting in a city that consistently smells of a toilet; the tourist industry is so corrupt they have gone so far as to poison tourists in restaurants only to guide them to a "reputable" doctor who feeds them "medicine" keeping them sick for days and then presenting them with an outrageous bill, and the government isn't known as a place desperate tourists can turn for help.

That said, the Taj Mahal truly is exquisite, as cliche as that may sound. Just like the Grand Canyon, no photos or descriptions can prepare you for the emotional blow to the senses that this wonder delivers. Were I an architect I could tell you measure by measure the exact ratio of perfection. I am not, so I can only describe how the building holds no real color but rather reflects the changing colors of the day: gray in early morning, bluish-violet at dawn, orange at sunset. Floral inlay and Koranic scripture graze the inside and outside of the entire building and are neither overworked or inconsistent. The symmetry of the entire structure is obvious even to an untrained eye, except for the tomb of Shah Jahan laid next to that of Mumtaz Mahal, his beloved and the alleged inspiration for the mausoleum.

Set against the Indian sky, which is never truly blue due to a heavy layer of smog, and rising up above the Yamuna River, like the Giant Buddha in Bodhgaya, the tomb floats, no foundation firm enough to hold it down, no earth pure enough to maintain it. The motivation in building the Taj Mahal is, of course, suspect (Said to be a tribute to eternal love for Mumtaz, his  "favorite," but one of many wives who died giving birth to his thirteenth child, later research has discovered that the design of the building is identical to that of an ancient Muslim ideal of the righteous seat of god, set in the gardens of heaven. It appears that the Shah had grandiose ideas about his own power and where he should be laid to rest.) but it isn't the impetus that moved me but only the product. Something  so perfect given, not without cost, to the world exists specifically to whomever beholds it. Like a Mont Blanc upon which to project your dreams. Like the Grand Canyon, a scale with which to measure your ambition. My memories will not be kind to Agra the city, but I will reflect on the Taj Mahal as though I witnessed it in a vacuum, at no particular time and in no particular place. It can and does exist in the light on a city sidewalk, anywhere I happen to be making my way.