Postcard from India: An enduring symbol of love – and need
August 4, 2008
Every year millions of visitors stand in quiet wonder before the Taj Mahal – the magnificent marble mausoleum in Agra, India, that is the world’s most widely recognized symbol of love.
Katie Early, Ipas’s director of development, and I took our turn one overcast, steamy morning in June. Just past sunrise, we crossed under the gateway leading into the Taj gardens and, like so many before us, were struck dumb — not only by the beauty of the pale morning light reflecting off the majestic white dome and the delicately carved minarets that surround it, but also by its enduring symbolic relevance.
Most tourists know that the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj, as the locals call it, to honor eternally the memory of his beloved, devoted wife, Queen Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631. But as Katie and I stood absorbed in the monument’s opalescent beauty, we were acutely conscious of something many visitors may not know, at least not before visiting the Taj: that Queen Mumtaz died giving birth to her 14th child, at the age of 48.
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