350-year-old Taj Mahal still elicits awe

By Vir Singh
Christian Science Monitor

GURINDER OSAN / AP Tourists trek through a sandstorm to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. The famed attraction, which lures 2 million visitors annually, is celebrating its 350th anniversary for the next several months.

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The experience of first seeing India's Taj Mahal has entranced visitors for 350 years, an anniversary that began last month and will be marked with special events over the next half year.

But for Indians who have grown inured to the Taj's charms — the enormous white marble domes and minarets, the symmetry, grace and sheer majesty — the fete has so far brought little reflection on the noble ideals of love and beauty that inspired bereaved emperor Shah Jahan to build the Taj as a tomb for his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

Instead, reports at the initial gala focused on the hundreds of VIPs and celebrities in attendance. And a flap over opening the Taj at night to visitors has made big news.

What's breathtaking to holiday makers tends to elicit yawns from the locals. "Indians normally come to take their kids to look at the monument," says Utkarsh Faujdar, until recently a manager of a luxury hotel in Agra. "The 'wow' factor is more for the foreigners."

But indifference quickly changes to indignation the moment Indians perceive a threat to the country's best-known symbol. Controversy has mounted for most of the past decade about how to save the marble edifices from the ravages of air pollution. Scores of factories have been forced to close down in and around Agra, a dusty industrial town on the banks of the Yamuna River that is the unlikely home to the world's greatest monument to love. Residents doubt the closures have done much to improve air quality, and say officials have ignored other polluters, most notably nearby hotels that run diesel generators.

Earlier this year, a scandal came to light when the government of Uttar Pradesh, the state in which the Taj resides, allowed construction to begin on a shopping complex in full view of the monument and another big tourist attraction, the Agra Fort. Investigators are looking into how the project was approved without the permission of federal authorities.

Even the Taj's 350th-birthday celebrations have been overshadowed by an apparent lack of coordination between India's tourism ministry and the Uttar Pradesh government. Tour operators say they are in the dark about upcoming events.

Yet despite the controversies; despite harassment by vendors, guides, and taxi drivers; and despite the inescapable filth and squalor of Agra, the Taj is far and away India's most popular tourist attraction. More than 2 million travelers visit the site each year.

It is easy to see why. In this place of quiet precision, complete with manicured lawns and perfectly aligned reflecting pools, the outside world seems to melt away.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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