A monument to love

One of the fondest memories I have of my visit to India is the Taj Mahal. We knew that it supposed to be beautiful but we were nonetheless struck still when we first beheld the beauty that is the Taj Mahal. It sits at the far end of a reflecting pool, polished white marble spires glittering in the sun and your heart catches in awe. You draw closer and you see the beautiful calligraphy of Koranic verses decorating its walls and the myriad pattern of flowers made of the beautiful gems still decorating its walls. There is a pleasing and impressive symmetry to the Taj and it is truly quite unlike anything else in the world.
The story behind the Taj is just as compelling and while the whole world knows its bare outlines, I have found one book that truly delivers the “untold” story. A teardrop on the cheek of time is a definitive retelling of the story behind the Taj Mahal. The beauty of this book however is that it delves far deeper thanks to the extensive research undertaken by authors Diana and Michael Preston. It gives an astute, learned and complete historical and cultural background of the Moghul epoch. The book introduces an impressive cast of characters that made up the powerful Moghul Empire from the founding patriarch Babur all the way to the Aurangzeb who deposed his grieving father Shah Jahan. More importantly we meet the beautiful and enigmatic Mumtaz Mahal, the woman who inspired such a wondrous monument. In writing this book the way they have, the authors have succeeded in fleshing out these characters so that they jump out of the page with intense immediacy. The extensive research is certainly appreciable and does justice to the subject matter.
While this is a historical book, this is no dry history book. Within the story of the Moghul Empire is a story full of Shakespearean elements and these were very skillfully brought out by the authors. They were able to weave together all the disparate strands of history, romance, political strife and family conflict together into a compulsively readable tome. At the end of this fascinating book, one feels the need to revisit the Taj and view it in the light of all that we now know.