تاج محل / ताज महल
We've all heard about it..wanted to see it..lovers around the world (well let's hope not all..and really only a small percentage!) consider it their Mecca! It comes as no suprise that shah jahan's monumental creation, is now held as masterpiece of architecture for all to behold.
so me going to see it, is probably i guess natural...though believe me in the summer of Agra walking that long shadeless walk up to the mausoleum is no joke..and the last thing on your mind is anything but love!
The politics for the ordinary: Though the Taj does keep a lot of my thoughts involved i cannot help but observe certain surrounding areas.
Enter Agra.
Once a medieval city, Agra situated on the banks of the river Jamuna, is now..to be honest a sore sight for the eyes. You'd think we would try to make it better, with the whole campaign for getting taj into the top 7 world wonders in the world (personally the number and voting method is just simply ridiculous and waste of our time really..) up to the taj it's a horrible sight, and once you enter the grounds your mind is completely taken away from the sights that you have witnessed...the emaculate grounds are well maintained, the place is clean.. but..
you'd think there is something that can be done aboout the Oil refinery belonging to the Indian Oil company in Mathura (the adjoining city) that is polluting the environment, the very reality of a polluted and dying Jamuna, the resulting acid rains that are slowly but surely dicolouring the stones on the Taj,...i could go on..
The fact is non of the politicians will dare take a stand in developing Agra, or cleaning it up because that would mean some sort of displacement, of the very poor that is the back bone of their votes! As i heard once remarked over one of those many political dicussions "you take a stand on Agra? you will be voted out next". those lines really do sum it up. And then you start wondering about this system of democracy that has come in to place. There are too many of us out there proclaiming the ideological virtues of Democracy...but the question is exactly what have we installed in the name of democracy? The fundamentals maybe simiar, but somehow there is a unique development of a particular DNA that seems to make a particular type of demodracy to function. And this DNA is governed too, oddly by the people.
indifference...
It's always easy to brand the politicians, no...i'm definitely not trying to speak on their behalf, but we have to see the whole picture to really grasp the fact that it isn't about the individual will of a man or woman. It's the lack of collective will of the people. now collective will may sound like some kind of social movement, But believe me, democracy is a social revolution that is still taking place, but unfortunately in many instances it came rather from the top than willed from the bottom. Thus have we sealed the fate for a functioning democracy?
mmm....the taj is beautiful, symbolising love and purity..etc. etc. and also of a man's arrogance in enslaving thousands of workers to create this masterpice and ensure it is never replicated. it recalls the necessitty for us to chose democracy instead of other methods of governance, a free world...
which means in other words a world of our choice..
what we fail to remember is when we did this, we shifted all the responsibilty from the guy with the crown on his head to every individual of our land. somehow, our own governance of ourselves seems to interest only a few intellectuals who will theorise this philosophy, or a few morons who are quick to manipulate the situation. The general public seems to title it POLITICS. Oh that, not my area of ineterst.
when do we stop thinking about ourselves?
never.
believe me governance of yourself is part of your birthright. think about that
It says on a stone inscription situated inside the Taj grounds that the Taj mahal is considered "a tear drop in the expanse of time"
very poetic..
seeing how we treat the women of our society,
how we have let our eco-system be disrupted,
how we have let poverty become acceptable
and intolerance part of our natural make up...
this symbol of love, purity, of woman hood... the whole tear drop thing...
should really be like "bawling my head off for today's world".
