February 21, 2025

Taj Mahal

A very long time ago, there lived a very powerful king. The king had three wives, one Roman, one from Jaipur, and one Hindu. One wife in particular was special to him. His Hindu wife- who was beautiful and smart and kind- and wanted nothing to do with him. “I can be you wife” she told him. “But you will never be my husband.” One day he took her along to go hunting. When the time was right, she tried to kill him but did not succeed. But the Hindu queen was not the only one with her eyes set on attacking the king. On the very same day, a lion crept up and lunged towards the ruler. The Hindu queen, strong, brave, and tained in weaponry, killed the lion and saved the king. The king was aghast.
“Why did you save me?” he asked. “You only just tried to kill me?”
“You are MY prey.” said the queen. “Only I get to kill you.”

Soon, the queen began to notice that the king was not all that terrible. He was kind, gentle and honest, it was his advisors that were corrupt and cruel. They had created laws that only taxed the Hindus and Christians and gave tax cuts to the Muslims. The queen told her husband he must tax everyone equally, it was only fair.
The king in his wives lived in Dehli fort- a place where any non-royal man was forbidden to enter by threat of beheading. Only women, and transgender women, were permitted to come in. The king was very sneaky and created secret passageways for him to travel and visit each of his wives in secret. The wives could not speak about being visited by the king, and his whereabouts would always remain secret- something the king swore would keep his wives from becoming jealous.
The story goes that none of the king’s wives could give him a child. Well, it seems to me that the problem may not be the wives. But that is beside the point. One day, the king visited a monk to seek advice, and the monk told him it was because he was living on barren land. He must move somewhere else. Thus, the king moved to Agra and built the fort. It was there that his first child was born, by his Hindu wife.

Years later, the grandson of the king grew up and into a position of power. He was like his grandfather in many ways: first, he had three wives, and second, he swore that “none of them could give him kids.” But alas, his third wife, and his favorite wife, saved the lineage, giving birth to a total of 14 children. After the birth of her 14th child, the new king’s third wife was barely clinging to life. Right before she passed, she asked the king to build something that the country could remember her by. And the king kept his promise. He never married again, and 14 years later, his masterpiece was complete.

Here I am standing at the Taj Mahal. Something I have read about in books, seen on TV, and stared at through little picture boxes in my phone. I had never known it was built as a symbol of undying love, an object of romance. I had never known that it was a tomb. I’m not much one for guided tours, as I like to explore on my own, but I was grateful to have been provided with such critical insight. The way you see things is shaped by the stories you hear about them. And what you associate with them, what they mean to you. As an artificat, the taj mahal is a beautiful structural masterpiece. As an emblem of grievance, one represents true love and loyalty at its core. Here I was, thinking it was just another religious monument, built upon stories I hadn’t heard before. But to notice this particular story, of love and loss and everything in between, has painted a picture of the humanness we all share. It has brought me closer to my family and friends at home, even from 4,000 miles away.

By,
Olive