<img style="float: left;" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2015/dec/ranjona-banerji.jpg" alt="" width="100" height="64" />Hands down, the Taj Mahal is the most beautiful building, monument, manmade structure - call it what you will - that I have seen. I regret that I have only seen it twice in my life. How cliched, you may say, and so be it. Sunsets are awe-inspiring and cliched. Moonrises are magnificent and cliched. It is what it is.
<img title="The beauty of the Taj Mahal does not take away from the beauty of other historic buildings in India - to the intelligent person I mean. Representation pic/AFP" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2017/oct/Taj-Mahal-a.jpg" alt="The beauty of the Taj Mahal does not take away from the beauty of other historic buildings in India - to the intelligent person I mean. Representation pic/AFP" /> The beauty of the Taj Mahal does not take away from the beauty of other historic buildings in India - to the intelligent person I mean. Representation pic/AFP
You can tell me that it is a mausoleum. But you say that because you think death is a defiler. And yet, as mortal creatures, death defines us. The building is small but perfectly proportioned. It just makes your being go "aah" as you see it. There is no logic in the way the heart feels although architects and psychiatrists will explain otherwise. To quote some wise man or the other, "The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of."
Being in 2017 in India, however, we have given beauty a filthy, sectarian and hate-filled tinge.
The Taj Mahal is not Indian because the Mughals built it. And Mughals were Muslims and invaders. And all Muslims are bad. And only Hindus are good. And all the other dangerous small-minded nonsense that our current rulers believe in.
There are other naysayers. People who do not find Taj Mahal beautiful. People who must be contrarian if they are to be true to themselves. People who will find reasons as to why beauty must have morality if it is to be admired. People who apply tod&shy;ay's standards to yesterday's events. I have no beef with these people (and to paraphrase the great poet, as long as some people are in power I can have no beef at all!). They are what they are.
Yes, the water of the Yamuna behind the Taj Mahal can be filthy. Yes, the myths around it are sometimes untrue. Yes, the workers who made it may have been killed. Maybe they did not get fair wages, maybe these workers did not have the luxury to appreciate the building's beauty.
Of course, the current BJP leader asking for the Taj Mahal to be disregarded or the UP government leaving it out of a tourism pamphlet are not the first instances of the Hindutva right wing being offended by the Taj Mahal. Earlier, "historians" have claimed it is actually a Hindu temple, regardless of evidence or sense, neither of which feature much when ideology trumps fact.
Take it all away, and the Taj Mahal is a beautiful building, it is a building people want to see, it is a building people come to India to see. Being insecure about it does not change any of it. Nor does it reduce the beauty.
The odd thing is that the beauty of the Taj Mahal does not take away from the beauty of other historic buildings in India - to the intelligent person I mean, whose being is not overtaken by bile and bigotry. You can still be in awe of the Ajanta Caves and Ellora temples. Of the Konark Sun Temple, the intricate, gorgeous stepwells of Gujarat, of Hampi, of the grandeur of Fatehpur Sikri&hellip; I name only some in a random manner.
The more you travel, the more you see and wonder. Also, some days, you want to eat an apple, other days an orange. What sort of a fool would decide that an apple is anti-national? Yes, you know what sort.
The skyscrapers of New York resonate more with me than taller and shinier buildings more recently built because they have history and context. That is my prerogative.
Fallingwater, built for the Kaufman family, by Frank Lloyd Wright in Pennsylvania still takes my breath away. Some of it hasn't returned yet. Cliched, but so what? Memories of the Corbusier homes in Ahmedabad I was privileged enough to visit thrill me when I think of them.
So, what is it in you that makes you unable to appreciate beauty unless if fits some bigoted standard of your own? Is aesthetics not enough unless you can tie it to hatred? When you celebrate Diwali, will it be with the most expensive thing you can find because only money is beauty or can you appreciate the joy of light in a simple handmade diya?
But I will tell you my real fear. That as hatred builds, good sense retreats. And the voices one hears against the Taj Mahal, a symbol of India for many in the world, can neither be trusted nor ignored. What do you choose?
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist. You can follow her on Twitter @ranjona. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

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Ranjona Banerji: A Taj of beauty is a joy forever

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