Skip to main content

The Taj Mahal and Sir Isaac Newton

My wife and the Taj - Romance in 2011

“The Taj Mahal rises above the banks of the river like a solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time,” wrote Rabindranath Tagore.  The amazing monument has stirred the imagination of many poets, novelists as well as simple travellers like me.  The very image of the Taj conjures up a melange of feelings and fantasies in me.  I have visited it twice and would love to visit many more times if people like Sangeet Som don’t bring it down before I go down. 

I have no great regard for Shahjahan.  He appears as a villain in one of my stories.  His wife, Mumtaz Mahal, for whom the white marble monument was constructed, was not monumentally great either.  But the Taj Mahal – that’s a marvel, a poem, a romance, a dream, a fantasy.  No, Sangeet Som, I can’t agree an iota with you.  You are a rioter and hence cannot appreciate poetry and romance.  Your heart is filled with black hatred. I feel sorry for you.

Around the time the Taj was constructed on the bank of the Yamuna, Sir Christopher Wren created a similar wonder on Ludgate Hill in London: St Paul’s Cathedral.  I don’t think I will ever be rich enough to visit that architectural marvel, much as I would love to.  It is not any religious impulse that draws me to St Paul’s.  The Cathedral has other charms for me like the Taj Mahal.  It is a symbol of sophistication, an affluence of an elevated sort that I would love to feel and admire. 

When Shahjahan and Christopher Wren were presiding over the construction of their respective architectural marvels, another genius was writing a monumental work which would revolutionise science soon: Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica.  [This too became a subject of one of my short stories: Halley’s Fishes.]  While Christopher Wren found a match in India in the person of Shahjahan, Isaac Newton failed to do so. 

Years have passed.  Shahjahan and Mumtaz merged into the dust of the earth.  But the Taj stands reminding us about the immortality of romance.  If people like Sangeet Som succeed in razing it to dust, it will be because Sir Isaac Newton failed to find his counterpart in India. 

How long will the Yamuna continue to carry the shadow of the Taj?



Comments

  1. Murthy K v v sOctober 23, 2017 at 12:37 PM

    Tomichan ji...Perhaps Shajahan in you compelled you to write it.Politics temporary.Beauty endures.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 23, 2017 at 6:43 PM

      Indeed, Murthy ji, there is a romantic in me that has survived all the travails of life. :)

      Delete
  2. BloggerApril 2, 2018 at 12:43 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kshyamananda SahooAugust 20, 2021 at 6:19 PM

    Very good website, thank you.
    Brass Agarbatti Stand Incense Stick Holder Dhoop Dani
    Lotus Design Dhoop Dani Order From OdishaShop
    Handicraft Work From OdishaShop

    ReplyDelete
  4. dheerajdixitOctober 19, 2022 at 4:25 PM

    Taj Mahal in Agra in such imposing and elegant structure full of complexities that one must borrow Gargantua’s mouth to describe About Taj Mahal salient features.About Taj MahalThis epitome of Mughal architecture is a world Heritage site and considered as one among the new 7 wonders of the World. Set amidst the sprawling lush green gardens it has been the fountain sprit for other architectural marvels.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
13 comments
Read more

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans
25 comments
Read more

Queen of Religion

She looked like Queen Victoria in the latter’s youth but with a snow-white head. She was slim, fair and graceful. She always smiled but the smile had no life. Someone on the campus described it as a “plastic smile.” She was charming by physical appearance. Soon all of us on the Sawan school campus would realise how deceptive appearances were. Queen took over the administration of Sawan school on behalf of her religious cult RSSB [Radha Soami Satsang Beas]. A lot was said about RSSB in the previous post. Its godman Gurinder Singh Dhillon is now 70 years old. I don’t know whether age has mellowed his lust for land and wealth. Even at the age of 64, he was embroiled in a financial scam that led to the fall of two colossal business enterprises, Fortis Healthcare and Religare finance. That was just a couple of years after he had succeeded in making Sawan school vanish without a trace from Delhi which he did for the sake of adding the school’s twenty-odd acres of land to his existing hun
19 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more