Inside, we found a 35 year old guide called Parvez Ali who explained to us the stories that he's memorized and repeated since his childhood. He was obsessed with the dates, the distances, the counts - anything to do with numbers. How the 11 + 11 mini domes represented the 22 years it took to build the Taj. How the fountains represent the year. He showed us the hooks on the main dome where India wrapped up the Taj in a black blanket during the India-Pak war to protect it from air attack. He pointed to the four main pillars and explained that they lean outwards so during an earthquake they fall out and not in. The foundation includes water tanks that also protect it from earthquakes. The older two queens have got smaller mausoleums but the Taj of course is reserved for Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan. Shah Jahan was keen on building a black Taj Mahal on the other side of Yamuna but it was then that his son Aurangazeb arrested him. Later, Parvez explained that it's a little known secret that one of the reasons that Aurangazeb, a staunch Muslim arrested his father because the latter had inscribed the Holy Quran on the Taj and when it rained, the water would touch the words and drip to the floor and this would be very disrespectful. An alternate, common view is that Shah Jahan spent Rs. 4 crores (350 years ago) in building one Taj and spending that kind of money again on another one would completely empty the kingdom's treasury.
As I looked on across the Yamuna where the black Taj was supposed to be built and at the Taj - the symmetry was overwhelming. How could an architect - just by his andaz or sense of proportion build everything so symmetrically. Here I was struggling to hold the camera in a coordinated angle and there was this structure that looked exactly, exactly the same on all 4 sides. You stand right in the middle in some areas and you can't really tell the difference when you look left or right - it's precise. How did that architect whose two thumbs were chopped off after the monumental effort pull on for 22 years and coordinate 22,000 laborers to build a structure with so much precision? How did Shah Jahan have the vision to commit to a project like this that stood the tests of time? I sat near the left pillar (facing) towards the mosque and looked on and on (Parvez who got comfortable with us by then - was explaining that the Taj had done no good for them in Agra because all industry is banned and it's a big burden). From that angle, you can really see the geometrical angles - sharp and correct - I can still see it in my mind's eye. The whole effort is complicated in its simplicity. It's simple because all that one did is to figure out one side - precisely and correctly - for measurement, beauty and everything. After that the effort involved is accurate replication on all 4 sides and on the side structures - that is the real difficult part. Parvez explained to him, look just like the human body - you first have the skeleton and then lumps of flesh on it, the Taj's main structure was first built on marble and then the other stones and gems were fitted in.
Another thought occured to me by that pillar. The beauty of Taj and its structure cannot be argued against - you can't just say it's bad looking (Parvez corrected that some tourists do but that's a minor exception). It is very beautiful and magnificent and monumental - even literally. If you view it as a product - it's fundamentally very, very simple and in order to make it that simple, the underlying effort is extremely complicated - and one perceives this - anyway one wants to view it. The beauty therefore lies in the sheer simplicity and the awe-inspiring outlook is brought about by the underlying complexity. The same is true with any disruptive idea or product - iPod for example - this rule or logic holds.
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