The Taj Mahal

As you may know, I was in India for a week. We had an awesome time and we were able to spend a day at the Taj Mahal. I had always assumed that it was a religious monument, however it isn't. It is actually a tomb built by Muslim Mughal Emperor Shāh Jahān to honour his favourite wife Arjumand Bano Begum, who is better known as Mumtāz.

It took 22000 workers, 23 years to build, from white marble. There is an incredible amount of inlay work and carving, all cut by hand. It is completely symmetrical in every aspect except one, explained in the next paragraph. The gardens, the mosque, every jewel, every carving, is a complete mirror image from every side.

The monument was built to house his wife's body He had actually planned to have a black version for built himself, and it was actually started, but his son felt that it was too costly and wasteful and kyboshed the idea. When he died, his son entombed him alongside his wife, who had been placed in the centre of the mausoleum, hence throwing off the symmetry of the place.

Our tour guide spun us the usual tour guide BS mixed in with the facts. He said there 16 gardens and 53 fountains to represent the year it was finished, 22 steps leading up to the monument representing the number of years it took to build (except that isn't right); you know usual global tour guide stuff, almost believable, but cannot be proven.

They have this great trick where by optical illusion you can pretend to be "picking up" the Taj! As always Wikipedia does a great job of detailing the history and facts here, and of course I have lots of pictures here.

One last interesting fact that again I cannot prove is true, is that the four towers lean out by 2.5 degrees to protect the Taj Mahal should there be an earthquake. Wikipedia doesn't mention it, and they could appear to lean from an optical illusion, either way it was thought provoking.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vote For The Cutest Baby

Image
If you think my little girl is just the cutest thing your ever saw, then please vote for her. I recently entered her in a local radio station contest, and we only have about a week to vote to get her through this round, then I would guess some other voting in following rounds. Click here to go to the site and vote , as many times as you can/want, although I think you have to register before you vote, so I understand some people will not want to do that. Vote early, vote often!
Read more

Video Revolution

Image
As you know the US has just celebrated Thanksgiving; that annual ritual of eating a lot, shopping a lot and putting out the Christmas decorations. As you can see from this picture, I am but a mere blot on the landscape when compared to some of the other efforts around the US, but it is a process of building up. Talk of shopping though, and I fall even more short of the traditional American Thanksgiving shopper. Some stores open at midnight on Thanksgiving, most waiting until around 4 or 5am the following morning, with people waiting in line for literally hours to grab a "door buster" bargain. Usually some limited stock electronics item, a laptop, flat screen TV, etc that can be 50-80% lower than the regular retail. We sauntered out around 10am, when most people had already put in a full day. The traffic was OK, the parking lots full but not bursting, and the bargains not quite so cheap, but still good value. We picked up a video camera, hence the title of this post, for a me
Read more

News Update

Image
Well it's been a while since I posted any news about what is going on here with us, so I thought I would kinda pull together thoughts from the last few months. The first and most exciting news is our forthcoming new addition. Our first child is due September 25 th , for those of you who haven't read in a little while or seen the posting, click here . All is well, and we are trying to plan our year, including any trips, especially where flying is involved, before it is too late for Lorraine to fly. According to the due date we are at 15 weeks right now, and there is not much else to tell. She is not really showing yet, no kicking, etc. She was as sick as a dog on dodgy dog food for the whole first tri mester , and whilst she is much better now, she still has some issues in the evening. I mention the dodgy dog food intentionally because of an issue which is only getting worse here in the US. For months a major rebranding manufacturer (name withheld to protect from law suits :-)
Read more