Things That Bang

While standing in the long security check line outside the Taj entry we burned in the shimmering spring heat last month.

Agra is a couple of degrees hotter than Delhi. The line of human beings barely moved and tempers flared when people tried to jump queue. I berated myself for not getting my tots sun hates and covered their heads with handkerchiefs. The heat was getting to all of us and I wondered out loud as to how many of us would suffer from sunstroke that afternoon.

I grumbled whether the Taj was far more important than our collective health. To which my mother replied, "Not only is the Taj more important than our health but even our lives!!"

I was shocked but she explained that such buildings are monuments of posterity that we bequeath to our children and so on. Our life span are short compared to the Taj and the happiness it brings to thousands year after year, decades and centuries later continue.

Since my mom is a history reader at Delhi University I did not have the heart to debate with her knowing her bias for all that is historical but once I feasted my eyes on the Taj my need to protest disappeared.

I felt a surge of happiness sweep through my heart. This was my third visit to the Taj and it still enthralled me. I grabbed my camera and clicked away like a tourist, all the while trying not to bump into people who in turn seemed to have become even tempered.

There was no pushing at any of the entry or exist points, water cooler had been provided at a certain point, the public loos were still dirty but inner chambers of the Taj were cool.

People sat in the shadows of the Taj, kids ran around, there were foreigners and Indians from different states who enjoyed the beauty of the tomb. The Yamuna river was parched dry and thankfully the much despaired Taj Corridor by Mayawati a thing of the past.

Due to the mind numbing heat and exhausted complaining children I wasn't able to take too many pictures but the monument left a lasting impression in my mind.