Anyway, it is interesting to see the connection between Indians and Armenians in the past and also the present. There’s a page on Armenians in India here.

Cheers,
NY?

Anyway, Loony Moony would make a great blogger and is already proving herself as an excellent feature story writer in Armenia. She’s probably one of the few Armenian journalists that can actually write anything interesting.

And yes, she is a loony.

Totally.

;-)

Ridiculous, but I was scared. I trumpeted to all my friends via ICQ and e mail that tomorrow am going to see the Taj Mahal. And now am thinking what if one of the world wonders is just a beautiful edifice? What if I do not get the impression I am expecting to get? Everybody is waiting for a detailed story on Taj Mahal. What if I will disappoint so many people for whom the Taj is entire India?

On the way to the Taj in the bus I am looking out of the bus window. Agra was Mogul India’s capital in 16 century. Moguls always had special feelings to this city; even in huge Delhi there are not as many monuments, temples, parks and forts as in Agra.

We are approaching the Taj. I am trying not to look at it till the last moment in order to see it at once in the whole…

“The world is devided into two parts: those who have seen the Taj Mahal and those who haven’t,” wrote the great traveler Marco Polo. So I also became selected. Trapped in this moment which was eternity. Nothing was before this moment and nothing will be.

I am trembling all over. Yes, the Taj is amazingly beautiful but that is not the point. So what is it that makes the Taj so special? I cannot explain it in words. To talk about the Taj is the same as to describe love in words. Impossible.

I slowly moved to the Taj. Almost 350 years old, it was so magnificent and so ephemeral at the time. And indifferent. People were born and died, towns were destroyed and new towns were built, wars began and rulers changed. And the Taj was standing there indifferent to the history which repeated so many times.

I took my eyes away from Taj and suddenly an unseen power forced me to look back. It is amazing, the Taj makes you to look only at itself.

It was afternoon. The sun was very up as if did not dare to come close to the wonder. The Taj Mahal reflected in the pond in front of it. The Taj Mahal is absolutely symmetric. The snow white marble walls are covered with the black inscriptions from Koran. The Indians told me before the doors and the walls of the mausoleum were incrusted with precious stones which are now all taken away by robbers and later by the government.

I took off my sandals in front of the Taj where was a huge amount of the shoes and went in. The cenotaph of Shah Jahan was the only thing that would destroy the symmetry of the cemetery.

It is not allowed to take pictures inside. Before it was not allowed outside either, the reason was it destroys the energetic aura of that sacred place.

Now the tourists were clicking incessantly. I sat on the marble ground outside. Foreigners were walking around the Taj in white shirts and shorts with stagnant smiles. Indians were sitting on the ground in colorful saris and dhotis. They were looking at the people without any emotions as only Indians can.

The guides were narrating the touchy love story of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal to their groups. Any Indian kid knows that story.

Shah Jahan fell in love with a beautiful shop girl, Arjumand Banu and married her. They were unseparable. Arjumand, who got the name Mumtaz Mahal (treasure of the palace) was not only very beautiful but kind and intelligent and followed her husband everywhere. She died while delivering their 14-th child. When she was dying she made the emperor swear he would build the most beautiful edifice in the world as a symbol of their eternal life.

Shah Jahan kept his promise. According to the legend the Taj Mahal (palace crown) had been built within 22 years by more than 20 000 workers at the sacred river Yamuna. The workers’ hands afterwards were cut off so that they could never build second Taj Mahal.

When his son Jahangir threw him down the Shah asked just for one thing, to put him in the place where the Taj Mahal would be visible. Shah Jahan ended his days in Agra Fort in 2 kilometers away from Taj looking at his lovely Mumtaz’s grave…

On the way back to Delhi I was thinking about the Taj again and again. Suddenly… I think I understood the mystics of the Taj Mahal. I understood why so many people who have seen the Taj once want to come back here more and more. The Taj is so lonely that takes parts of the people who felt its loneliness. And one will always wish to go back for his/her part.

I am back to Delhi and hurry up to see my friend, who studies in the same institute with me. “Aroon, the Taj is amazing, amazing, amazing… And the story behind it”…

“I do not believe that sweet love story”, he interrupts me.

And he gives me the following link

http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/modern/taj_oak.html

I am not 100% sure the story it is true. But suddenly I caught myself on that I never wrote TOMB or MASOLUEM about the Taj. More over while being there in Agra I remember I told the Indian friend accompanying me:

“It is too spiritual to be a grave.”

Anyway, unfortunately I fit into the second category