Portrait of a Serial Killer: Uncollected Writings by Khushwant Singh

Portrait of a Serial Killer: Uncollected Writings by Khushwant Singh

Author:Khushwant Singh [Singh, Khushwant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789384067052
Publisher: Rupa & Co
Published: 2015-07-31T18:30:00+00:00


THE TAJ MAHAL

The Taj Mahal—crown of the palace—is named for Mumtaz Mahal, the regal title of the wife of Emperor Shah Jahan. The mausoleum was first known as Taj Bibi ka Rauza—the burial place of the Lady Taj—and then shortened to Taj Mahal.

Arjumand Bano, the daughter of a nobleman, was nineteen when she was married to Prince Khurram (as the emperor was then known) who was twenty-one at the time. Although she was the second wife of her husband who, as was customary with royalty of the time, married or maintained many other wives and concubines, Arjumand Bano (Mumtaz Mahal) remained her husband’s favourite. She accompanied her husband on all his military campaigns and, when he fell out with his father, shared his misfortunes for seven long years. When Emperor Jahangir died in 1627, Prince Khurram destroyed all his other rivals and ascended his father’s throne with the title Shah Jahan—King of the World. Mumtaz became his chief adviser and keeper of the royal seal. Later she gave up interest in matters of state and devoted herself entirely to works of charity—looking after widows and orphans and providing marriage expenses for girls of indigent families. This period of domestic bliss lasted only three years. In 1631 she was with her husband at Burhanpur when she was delivered of her fourteenth child and took seriously ill. Before she died, she entrusted her husband’s care to her eldest child, Jahanara Begum. She made her husband promise that he would raise over her grave a mausoleum worthy of the love that she had borne him in the eighteen years of their married life. After her death Shah Jahan was so grief-stricken that within a few days his hair and beard turned completely grey.

A poet wrote:

His hair was grey but not with years

Nor grew they white in a single night

As men’s would from sudden fears

Ah! Cantankerous grief his heart did blight.

Mumtaz was first buried at Zainabad Gardens in Burhanpur. Six months later her coffin was disinterred, brought in solemn procession to Agra and once again given a temporary resting ground in a garden on the banks of the Yamuna. Shah Jahan then issued orders for the building of the mausoleum. Innumerable designs were presented to the emperor. He selected one made by Ustad Isa Khan Effendi, an Indian of Turkish origin in the employ of the Mughal empire. Effendi had to make a model in wood before final approval was granted. An army of 20,000 labourers, masons, stonecutters and jewellers was assembled. Marble was brought from Makrana; sandstone from Sikri, semi-precious stones from the mines of India, Afghanistan, Persia and Central Asia. In the absence of mechanical devices, a 3.2-km-long sloping ramp was laid in order to carry building material to the dome that was designed by Ismail Khan.

It took twelve years to complete the central mausoleum. Mumtaz Mahal’s remains were given their final burial exactly below the central point of the dome. A replica of the tomb was built on the floor above so that people could pay homage to her without disturbing the peace of her real resting place.



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