Taj Mahal

An otherworldly experience from the ghosts of our past

The rickety bus clambered on sun baked roads, blaring Hindi music punctuated by screeching halts. “Agra, Agra!” the conductor sang at every stop.

Abba gruffed from my mutiny, me at the open window with hair prancing merrily, just like the heart within.

Wohoo! We were going to see the Taj Mahal!

It was the nineties. I, one of many siblings, travelled to Aligarh, with the ruse of an exam.

Exhilarated to escape confines of our small town — the next stop on my wish list, much to Abba’s chagrin, was the Taj Mahal, two hours from the musafir khana.

“Focus on the exam, Ladki. This is not a vacation!”

Abba had unwillingly agreed, only because sullen teenagers make terrible companions. And also because Fridays at the Taj were free.

Hawkers peddling replicas, bodies hustling, green flags with a crescent and star streaming. We walked in through bustling gates, unprepared for that shock of awe.

A first look at the masterpiece shared reverence with ghosts of the past. The otherworldliness and stature of it, all of forty-two acres.

A marble colosseum of vaulted domes, minarets and gardens. Pearl white mausoleum flanked by chocolate brown darwazas. Water fountains spinning like angels in attendance.

One of the seven wonders of the world indeed, I told myself. Transfixed, dazed and insignificant in its magnificence.

But the eighth wonder for me really was Abba’s transformation. And the startling discovery that my father was a romantic too.

“Thank you, Beta, for bringing me here today. I wish your Amma was here; it was always my desire to show her this monument of love.”