Years ago, I visited the Taj with the spouse and his cousins from Delhi - It was the first week of January and I experienced first hand, the romanticism and the ruthlessness of what Indians describe as "Delhi's winter" and amusingly enough, I found it more intense than the one we experience in Northern Ca. 'It could be due to lack of central heating system' - The husband and I concluded much later, upon looking back.
As we entered into the Taj - I felt dwarfed in the truest sense. The edifice was so surreal, that it indeed looked like something afloat in a dreamscape. When we started off from Delhi, the cousin's missus made sure I was wrapped head to toe in protective gear - Monkey cap, sweater, scarf, socks and shoes. I am somehow very intolerant to wearing socks as my warm blooded body refuses the added insulation on my feet with a vengeance. That day, as I peeled the socks off to feel the chill of the marble under my feet, the cousin cautioned me - "It is like walking on ice now" he warned "Don't take your socks off" - "This isn't any marble, this is the Taj and I want to feel her chill grazing against my skin" I told him and he nodded with a smile and followed suit :) Soon the four of us were walking around the Taj barefeet feeling the gentle sting of the cold on our skin. It was perhaps one of the most wonderful sensory experiences I had in my life. A tinge of the cold under feet, a larger than life monument looming infront of the gaze - This is something legends and wonders are made of and I figured what the hoopla was all about, first hand. Or I thought I did - until I read Timeri Murari's historical work - Taj - A story of Moghul India.
I am trying to read fiction lately - blame in on the steady overdose of everything non fiction I'd gotten used to reading , that holding my attention span onto a piece of fiction had become near impossible. I wanted to flex my fiction tolerance and at the same time look at it as a launch pad to my imagination and studying different voices and styles of authors from a technical perspective and picked up the Taj - a real piece of history narrated in a novel format. I'd read another of Murari's books a full on fiction and feel in love with how he deals with his narration and Taj isn't different or disappointing. Murari held my interest into the last word of the last page. It was Shahjahan and Arjumand that kind of irritated me in between, but the author did his job, anchoring me to the book with his brilliant narrative streaming across different perspectives of the main characters of the story.
There's one thing I'd observed about couples in love or in relationships - there's always an imbalance. And the imbalance could vary from very subtle to very intense - and the imbalance lies in how one part of the unit always loves more, gives more and adjusts more. Seldom, if that, have I seen couples who have a perfect, flawless balance in the way they love - with equal intensity, yearning and passion for the one another and I am talking about the most loving and successful of couplings that I'd seen over the years. But when I read the story of Shahjahan and Arjumand, I was in a way irritated at how the couple magically managed to balance the love and yearning to perfection. We see a twelve year old Arjumand banu selling her wares in the famous Meena Bazar of the Moughal empire and a fourteen year old Shahjahan falling head over heels - a love that is to inspire everlasting physical evidence that Indians would wear with pride on their diverse landscape - One of the seven wonders of the planet - now what lies behind the Taj that is there to see in the modern day one might wonder, and if one reads this book, one would know beyond doubt and go "aha, no wonder the wonder stands there today" :( cheesy much huh? Not if you read the legendary love story, I assure you you'd discount my cheesiness.
There were times when I got so irritated at Shahjahan's fuss over the monument that I'd put the book down and vow not to read any further. "Dude, we get you love her" I'd mutter under my breath "Now stop making so many lives miserable over creating the perfect tombstone" But in spite of knowing the history, I'd find myself unable to cut it off and dismiss Shahjahan and his shenanigans with a curiosity to know as much detail as I can of this monumental love.
The narrative shuttles between several perspectives in two time lines - One set as a prologue and another as an epilogue of sorts but both interwoven and seamlessly connecting entirely unconnected stories. The saga skips from one era to another - lingering around love, passion, power, politics and raw emotions of mad love, lust, jealousy, resentment and vengeance. It's a whole buffet of emotions that is served so scrumptiously leaving the reader devouring a very layered experience of a legendary real life epic.
So we see a heir apparent to one of the biggest monarchies of the universe and his love for an almost commoner Arjumand and how subtly his love trumps over the luxuries, privileges and prerogatives of an emperor. It sometimes gracefully and sometimes ruthlessly puts forth the brutal truth of love and sex - the former so pure and rare, the latter so easy and available - social status, and crown on the head are really optional if you ask me. The former fulfilling and the latter just satiating a primal hunger that doesn't penetrate beyond the flesh and blood. The former quenching the thirst of the soul and making one complete and the later being a momentary high that plummets the being into an non evolved animal. And in a very delightful irony, the story obliterates the fine line between both, often leaving the reader experiencing an evolved and broadened outlook on the matters of the heart.
We see Taj through the lens of an artisan Murthi and the eyes of a mad in love Shahjahan. We examine it through a two dimensional drawing translating into a multi dimensional monument, standing on the work and toil of thousands of skilled laborers spawning over several years. We let out sighs of awe and sighs of despair and disbelief flipping through the pages of the narrative. We see it as an epitome of love, as a paradigm of loathe once Aurangzeb takes hold of the reign. We see the unconscious biases we put ourselves through and realize how we fail ourselves and the people around us in the name of love or lack thereof.
I can go on and on. I have to say, reading this book was one of the highs I felt in the recent past. I am busy contemplating another trip to the Taj. This time I know I'd see the Mausoleum in a new light and I have a feeling I might see and sense beyond what my five senses would render me.
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